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CostaBlancaPeople 14th - 20th August
Elche youngster and baby captured by cult return home A young woman from Elche lured into a sect in Perú is home along with her father and twomonth-old baby daughter.
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atricia Aguilar Poveda, 19, was traced in July after her father Alberto travelled to the Peruvian Amazon and provided substantial help to the investigation out of the family savings and a crowdfunding operation. His daughter, vulnerable, grieving and seeking answers after her uncle died at the age of 29, was cannon-fodder for her captor, Félix Steven Manrique, 34, who
claimed to be a guru leading the cult known as Gnosis. He convinced 16-yearold Patricia that they were in love and that God had chosen her to repopulate the earth. Their contact was entirely online until just days after her 18th birthday in January 2017 when she took some of her parents' savings and left for Perú. She and at least two other women who had already had children by Manrique were kept captive in a flat in Lima and suffered repeated violence, including rape. Neighbours said the women followed Manrique 'submissively' and always a few steps behind him, and the children, who did not go to school, were exceptionally aggressive, attacking other kids in the district 'like demons'. Eventually, the women and children were moved to huts in a very hazardous part of the Amazon a long way off the tourist trail where even police would not go. Patricia's congenital heart condition
meant her pregnancy, and labour in early June, were extremely high-risk, but she gave birth alone in the jungle with only a native tribal woman to help her and no
medication. She and the baby girl, when they were found living in a dilapidated hut, were very underweight and malnourished and covered in mosquito bites. A delicate undercover operation spearheaded by Alberto led to Manrique's arrest, and Patricia's family paid for her and the other women, plus all the children, to be flown to Lima. Problems were envisaged at first because the baby automatically has Peruvian nationality as she was born there, meaning Patricia could not be deported for being in the country illegally, as her parents had hoped. Solicitor from the missing persons charity SOS Desaparecidos, María Teresa Rojas, said the news had been leaked about Patricia's homecoming, meaning the organisation and the family had little choice but to make an official announcement before they had planned to do so. They all call for discretion and 'patience' from the media and the public for the time being, although they recognise that the
press had played a huge role in helping to trace Patricia. Family spokeswoman, Patricia's cousin Noelia Bru, says they are all 'immensely happy' and that Patricia is 'very much looking forward to seeing her family and friends'. She was due to board a plane along with her baby and her father on Friday for a 10-hour flight to Madrid and then a connection to Alicante of around another hour. Her parents and cousin Noelia gave a press conference at Elche town hall yesterday (Monday 13th August), but Patricia, who is still recovering physically and psychologically, was not be present.
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