'Ghost children' siblings aged 6 and 9 rescued from isolated farm with no contact from outside world

A pair of 'ghost children' have been rescued from a remote farm in Italy after police found them living wild and cut off from the outside world.

The children, aged nine and six, were found on the remote farm in Lauriano, Northern Italy, when officers arrived to tell the occupants to evacuate after a flood alert was sent out.

According to local media the children's father is a 54-year-old Dutch man and their mother is 38 years old.

The father claimed he was home-schooling both of the children, but according to authorities neither of the kids can read or write, and they were both found still wearing nappies.

The children can also not communicate with others, instead using 'their own primitive language' to speak to each other.

Police came to warn the family about a flood, they found a boy and girl who'd had no contact with the outside world (Newsflash)

Police discovered that the children's parents never registered them with health officials or tried to send them to school, and when officers found the kids they were 'filthy'.

Images of the farm show some broken furniture, a garden littered with rubbish and a broken trampoline.

The children have been removed from their parents by the Turin Juvenile Court.

The court said: "There are facts that suggest that the minors are deprived of adequate assistance from their parents or relatives who are required to provide it."

The children are now in state care and arrangements are being made for them to go into foster care, while it is not yet clear what action the parents might face.

According to Corriere Torino, the children's father defended his actions by saying he kept his children in isolation to protect them.

He said: "My wife and I provide them with everything they need.

"They have lots of toys, each their own laptop, lots of musical instruments and their own ski equipment. They go pony riding at the stables and spend a lot of time outdoors in restaurants and museums."

The children cannot read or write, and cannot speak in a recognisable language (Newsflash)

Local mayor Mara Baccolla said: "It is a very delicate matter. These children can finally find a balance and have access to a life worthy of the name."

There are cases of parents keeping their children hidden away from the rest of the world, and if the births are never registered, then the authorities simply don't know about them.

A woman in the UK was jailed for seven years for 'extreme neglect' after keeping her baby daughter hidden in a drawer for the first three years of her life, with the child only discovered after a visitor heard the girl crying upstairs.

A man in the US escaped from his family home and claimed that his stepmother had kept him prisoner in the house for two decades.