FLORENCE - A two-year-old boy who had disappeared, with police unsuccessful of obtaining a single trace of him, after sleepwalking into the woods, has been found, by a journalist, at the bottom of a cliff. He is well but is currently being checked-over in hospital. He was found three kilometers away from home. 

 During the night of Mon. 23rd June, Nicola Tanturli went missing. His parents had put him and his four-year old brother to sleep that evening, only to find Nicola gone the following morning. They feared that he walked into the woods, unaware, as he “suffered from sleepwalking.” At ten o’clock in morning, they raised the alarm that “Nicola has disappeared.”   

  Police, firefighters, volunteers and neighbours had patrolled the surrounding woods and lake. The family live in an isolated house, in Campanara, Florence, which can only be reached by a country track. To Tanturli household is located in the wild, where internet and phone signal are very rare : populated by wolves and wild-boars, making it more difficult to trace Nicola. 

  He was used to exploring the vicinity closest to his house and moving independently, despite being only 22 months. It may be that he woke himself up, found himself in the pitch black wood, and walked, in vain, without finding the path home.  

  Two kilometres from their house is the ‘Ecovillaggio Campanara’, a community that for decades has practised organic farming. All the members came together to search for Nicola. The mayor of Palazzuolo sul Senio, Gian Piero Philip Moschetti said that: “Nicola is a very active child, ver lively, he could have walked for a kilometre an hour, we don’t know how far he could have gone. He was used to living in the fresh air.”

  An area of about 10 kilometres squared was searched, with the help of  a helicopter and search dogs, that had sniffed his clothes. “The area where they are concentrating the research is vast and hard-to-navigate, with woods and dense vegetation. We are sifting through the zone, the research is continuing with all of the power of the means available. We will continue, we won’t stop. There are drones and search dogs,” confirmed Moschetti. 

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