About to die

Polish woman locked in her nursery for 27 years

Here Mirella is being taken to an ambulance by police officers.(Bild: pomagam.pl)

It is hard to imagine the ordeal a 42-year-old Polish woman had to endure for almost three decades. The woman was locked in her nursery by her parents. When she was freed, Mirella had devastating wounds and inflammation on her legs - she would probably not have survived any more days in captivity.

The case in Świętochłowice brings back terrible memories of the Kampusch and Fritzl cases, which caused horror far beyond Austria's borders. At the end of July, the 42-year-old Polish woman was freed from an apartment where she had been held by her parents for 27 years. Now the case has become public. 

Woman didn't even have underwear
Mirella was last allowed to leave the apartment at the age of 15. Her parents then locked the young woman in her bedroom - with no contact with the outside world, no medical care and no access to basic hygiene items such as underwear or menstrual products. When she was freed from her dire situation, she was starving, frightened and had inflammations on her legs, some of which reached down to her bones. 

Here Mirella is being taken to an ambulance by police officers.(Bild: pomagam.pl)

Victim was not allowed to use the toilet
Supporters drew attention to the Polish woman's ordeal on the donation website pomagam.pl. According to the website, Mirella was never allowed to leave her apartment during the 27 years of her imprisonment - she was also denied access to the apartment balcony. The windows in the room where she was locked up were mostly closed. She was not even allowed to go to the toilet. 

The case came to light after an argument
The parents had initially told the neighbors that the teenager was missing. Nobody questioned this, nobody went looking for the teenager. The couple later changed their story and explained that Mirella had returned to her biological parents. It was only at the end of July that the neighbors became suspicious when they heard an argument and a babble of voices in the apartment: they called the police, as the Polish newspaper "Fakt" reported. 

Mirella had to be treated in hospital for two months because of her serious injuries. When she was freed, she could barely walk. "It's unbelievable," Aleksandra Salbert, who is organizing a fundraising campaign for the 42-year-old with friends, told Fakt, expressing her shock. "We have to help her find her way back to normality and regain the life she lost." The appeal for donations states that the woman would probably only have survived a few days without medical care. 

It was not initially clear whether charges would be brought against the parents. So far, no charges have been brought, the authorities told the Polish media. The police are investigating possible abuse, said Agnieszka Kwatera, the public prosecutor responsible.