Image copyright EPA Image caption Police described the location where the children were found as a "makeshift compound" near the community of Amalia in the north of New Mexico

Police in the US state of New Mexico have rescued 11 malnourished children who were being kept in squalid conditions in a remote desert compound.

They said the children, aged one to 15, had no shoes, were wearing rags and "looked like Third World refugees".

Five adults were found at the scene, including two heavily armed men.

Police searched the site after receiving a message from a third party that read: "We are starving and need food and water."

On Sunday, Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe "swore an affidavit for arrest warrants charging 11 counts of child abuse for all five adults related to the neglect and abuse of the children involved".

Each count of child abuse is a felony.

It is not clear how the group ended up at the compound in Amalia, near the state's border with Colorado.

Police described the compound as a small underground caravan covered by plastic, with no running water or electricity.

Sheriff Hogrefe told ABC News the children were hungry, thirsty and filthy.

"I've been a cop for 30 years. I've never seen anything like this. Unbelievable," he said.

"They were skinny, their ribs showed, they were in very poor hygiene and very scared."

Image copyright Taos County Sheriff's Office Image caption From left to right: Jany Leveille, Hujhrah Wahhaj, Subhannah Wahhaj

No fresh water was found at the site, and the only food there was a few potatoes and a box of rice, police said.

Two armed men, Siraj Wahhaj and Lucas Morton, were arrested at the scene, and charged with several counts of child abuse.

Three women, believed to be the children's mothers, were "arrested without incident" and booked in the Taos Adult Detention Center, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Police have not explained what connection the women - named as Jany Leveille, 35, Hujrah Wahhaj, 38, and Subhannah Wahhaj, 35, - have to each other.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Police said the children were living in "Third World" conditions

Mr Hogrefe told ABC it appeared the women and children "were brainwashed and feel great intimidation from the men that were in control of this facility".

The 11 children have been taken into care by local social services.

Mr Wahhaj is also wanted on suspicion of abducting his three-year-old son, but the boy was not among the group found at the compound, US media report. It was the search for the boy that led to the arrests on Friday.

According to the sheriff's office, law enforcement officials are still searching for the boy, who turned four on Monday.

Police said they had been aware of the compound for some time but had to wait for a search warrant to be issued before entering, as the occupants were "most likely heavily armed and considered extremist of the Muslim belief".

Mr Wahhaj was armed with an AR-15 rifle and four pistols when they encountered him, they said.

There were bullet casings covering the ground on site, as well as a makeshift shooting range and 150ft tunnel, KOB 4 News reported.</s>TAOS, New Mexico — A message that people were starving, believed to come from someone inside a makeshift compound in rural northern New Mexico, led to the discovery of 11 children living in filthy conditions.

Taos County Sheriff’s officials said Saturday the children ranging in age from 1 to 15 were removed from the compound in the small community of Amalia — 145 miles northeast of Albuquerque and in an isolated high-desert area near the New Mexico-Colorado border. They were then turned over to state child-welfare workers.

Two men were arrested during the search. Siraj Wahhaj was detained on an outstanding warrant in Georgia alleging child abduction. Lucas Morten was jailed on suspicion of harboring a fugitive, Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said.

It was not immediately clear Sunday if either had retained an attorney.

A 3-year-old boy reported missing from Georgia’s Clayton County since December 2017 was not among the 11 children found at the compound.

Three women, believed to be the mothers of the children, were detained and later released.

“The children are in our custody and our number one priority right now is their health and safety,” New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department Secretary Monique Jacobsons said in a statement. “We will continue to work closely with law enforcement on this investigation.”

The search at the compound just a few miles from the Colorado border came amid a two-month investigation in collaboration with Clayton County authorities and the FBI, according to Hogrefe.

He said FBI agents had surveilled the area a few weeks ago but didn’t find probable cause to search the property.

That changed when Georgia detectives forwarded a message to Hogrefe’s office that initially had been sent to a third party, saying: “We are starving and need food and water.”

The sheriff said there was reason to believe the message came from someone inside the compound.

“I absolutely knew that we couldn’t wait on another agency to step up and we had to go check this out as soon as possible,” Hogrefe said.

What authorities found was what Hogrefe called “the saddest living conditions and poverty” he has seen in 30 years on the job.

Other than a few potatoes and a box of rice, there was little food in the compound, which Hogrefe said consisted of a small travel trailer buried in the ground and covered by plastic with no water, plumbing and electricity.

Hogrefe said the adults and children were without shoes and wore basically dirty rags for clothing and “looked like Third World country refugees.”

The group appeared to be living at the compound for a few months, but the sheriff said it remains unclear how or why they ended up in New Mexico.</s>Police Raid Compound In New Mexico, Rescue 11 Emaciated Children Living In Squalor

Police in rural New Mexico have rescued 11 children living in what authorities have described as a squalid compound after receiving a tip that they were "starving."

The children, ranging in age from 1 to 15, were removed from the compound in the small community of Amalia, near the New Mexico-Colorado border, about 145 miles northeast of Albuquerque.

"They were skinny, their ribs showed, they were in very poor hygiene and very scared," Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe told ABC News Radio.

"I've been a cop for 30 years. I've never seen anything like this. Unbelievable," Hogrefe said. "These children were hungry, they were thirsty, they were filthy."

Two armed men, identified as Siraj Wahhaj, 39, and Lucas Morten, 40, were also arrested. Three women, believed to be mothers of the children, were also briefly detained, Hogrefe said.

All five adults have been charged with child abuse, Hogrefe said in a statement posted to the sheriff's office Facebook page.

Authorities described the compound as a small underground trailer covered in plastic, with no running water or electricity.

Hogrefe said that FBI agents had surveilled the compound a few weeks previous but did not at the time find probable cause to conduct a search.

Then Hogrefe's office received a message — thought to have come from someone inside — from a third party, saying, "We are starving and need food and water."

"I absolutely knew that we couldn't wait on another agency to step up and we had to go check this out as soon as possible," Hogrefe said, according to The Associated Press.

"The only food we saw were a few potatoes and a box of rice in the filthy trailer," Hogrefe said, adding that the children and adults looked like "refugees" and were "not only with no food or fresh water, but with no shoes, personal hygiene and basically dirty rags for clothing," he said.

"We all gave the kids our water and what snacks we had — it was the saddest living conditions and poverty I have seen," the sheriff said.

The Taos News reports that a toddler who shares the same surname as Wahhaj, which authorities had been searching for, was not among those rescued in the raid. The 3-year-old had been reported missing from his mother's Georgia home in December.

The newspaper adds, "According to Clayton County police, the toddler and his father had last been seen Dec. 13 traveling with two adults and five children in Alabama when they were involved in a single-vehicle accident on Interstate 65. The Alabama officer who talked to the group after the accident said they 'indicated that they were traveling to New Mexico for a camping trip.'"

"The children are in our custody and our number one priority right now is their health and safety," New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department Secretary Monique Jacobson said in a statement, according to AP. "We will continue to work closely with law enforcement on this investigation."</s>Moms of 11 children found at New Mexico compound arrested

TAOS, N.M. (AP) — Authorities say they've arrested three women believed to be the mothers of 11 children found living in filth in a makeshift compound in rural northern New Mexico.

Taos County, New Mexico, Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said Monday that the women and two men who were arrested over the weekend face charges of child abuse.

He says 35-year-old Jany Leveille, 38-year-old Hujrah Wahhaj and 35-year-old Subhannah Wahha were arrested without incident in the town of Taos and booked into jail.

The children ranging in age from 1 to 15 were removed from the compound in the small community of Amalia near the Colorado border. They were turned over to state child-welfare workers.

Hogrefe says police still are looking for 4-year-old AG Wahhaj, reported missing from Georgia's Clayton County. His birthday is Monday.</s>Moms of 11 children found at New Mexico compound arrested

TAOS, N.M. (AP) — Three women believed to me the mothers of 11 children found hungry and living in a filthy makeshift compound in rural northern New Mexico have been arrested, following the weekend arrests of two men, authorities said Monday.

A message that people were starving, believed sent by someone inside the compound, led to the discovery of the children. A 4-year-old boy last seen in Alabama in December traveling with one of the men who was arrested has not been found.

Taos County, New Mexico, Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said that the women and the two men face charges of child abuse. He identified the women as Jany Leveille, 38-year-old Hujrah Wahhaj and 35-year-old Subhannah Wahha. They were arrested in the town of Taos and booked into jail.

The children ranging in age from 1 to 15 were removed from the compound in the small community of Amalia near the Colorado border and turned over to state child-welfare workers.

Police are still are looking for 4-year-old AG Wahhaj, reported missing from Georgia's Clayton County, Hogrefe said. His birthday was Monday.

The boy's mother told police he left with his father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, for a trip to a park and never returned. The child was 3 at the time.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was detained on an outstanding warrant in Georgia alleging child abduction. Lucas Morten was jailed on suspicion of harboring a fugitive, Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said. It was not clear over the weekend if they had lawyers.

Clayton County police said in a missing persons bulletin that Wahhaj and his son were last seen Dec. 13 in Alabama, traveling with five other children and two adults.

The search at the compound came amid a two-month investigation in collaboration with Clayton County authorities and the FBI, according to Hogrefe.

He said FBI agents had surveilled the area a few weeks ago but did not find probable cause to search the property.

That changed when Georgia detectives forwarded a message to Hogrefe's office that initially had been sent to a third party, saying: "We are starving and need food and water."

The sheriff said there was reason to believe the message came from someone inside the compound.

What authorities found was what Hogrefe called "the saddest living conditions and poverty" he has seen in 30 years on the job.

Other than a few potatoes and a box of rice, there was little food in the compound, which Hogrefe said consisted of a small travel trailer buried in the ground and covered by plastic with no water, plumbing and electricity.

Hogrefe said the adults and children had no shoes, wore dirty rags for clothing and "looked like Third World country refugees."

The group appeared to have been living at the compound for a few months. It was unclear how or why they ended up in New Mexico, Hogrefe said.</s>TAOS, N.M. — Law enforcement officers searching a rural northern New Mexico compound for a missing 3-year-old boy didn't locate him but found 11 other children in filthy conditions and hardly any food, a sheriff said Saturday.

The children ranging in age from 1 to 15 were removed from the compound in the small community of Amalia, New Mexico, and turned over to state child-welfare workers, Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said.

Two men were arrested during the search while two women at the compound were initially detained before being released pending further investigation, Hogrefe said.

One of the men, 39-year-old Siraj Wahhaj, was jailed on a Georgia warrant alleging child abduction while the other man, identified only as Lucas Morten, was arrested on suspicion of harboring a fugitive, Hogrefe said.

Online court records checked Saturday didn't list defense attorneys who could comment on behalf of the men.

The search stemmed from an investigation involving the Taos County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and Clayton County, Georgia, authorities, Hogrefe said in a statement.

Amalia is 145 miles northeast of Albuquerque and in an isolated high-desert area near the New Mexico-Colorado border.

Hogrefe said authorities had conducted surveillance of the compound while looking for the missing boy before he decided Thursday to get a search warrant immediately after a Georgia investigator forwarded a message in which someone at the compound reportedly told another person that people at the compound were starving and needed water.

Hogrefe said the search did not turn up the missing boy, identified by the sheriff as AG Wahhaj, but that investigators had reason to believe the boy had been at the compound fairly recently.

It's not clear whether the boy and Siraj Wahhaj are related.

There were no injuries during the search, the sheriff said. But Wahhaj and Morten initially refused to follow commands and Wahhaj was armed with a rifle and four handguns, Hogrefe said.

There was little food in the compound, which consisted of a small travel trailer buried in the ground and covered by plastic with no water, plumbing and electricity, he said.

"The only food we saw were a few potatoes and a box of rice in the filthy trailer," the sheriff said.

The adults and children appeared like "refugees not only with no food or fresh water, but with no shoes, personal hygiene and basically dirty rags for clothing," the sheriff said. "We all gave the kids our water and what snacks we had — it was the saddest living conditions and poverty I have seen."</s>Police say 11 children ages one to 15 were rescued in the U.S. state of New Mexico after officers raided a dilapidated compound occupied by armed men.

Two men were arrested after police found them and the children in what one officer called "the saddest living conditions and poverty I have seen," as part of the operation connected to a monthslong search for an abducted three-year-old, according to New Mexico's Taos County sheriff's office.

The investigation kicked off late last year on the opposite side of the country in Jonesboro, Georgia, where 39-year-old Siraj Wahhaj of the state's Clayton County was accused of kidnapping his toddler -- who was ultimately not found.

The boy's mother told police her child, who she said suffered from seizures along with developmental and cognitive delays, went to the park with his father Wahhaj last December and never returned.

On August 2, Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe of Taos County in New Mexico issued a search warrant describing "a makeshift compound surrounded by tires and an earthen berm" in a subdivision in the rural community of Amalia, where Wahhaj along with adult Lucas Morten were thought to be in hiding.

The FBI had provided information and surveillance on the spot but "didn't feel there was enough probable cause to get on the property," Hogrefe said.

"That all changed for me when a message was forwarded to us from a Georgia Detective that we reasonably believed came from someone at the compound -- the message sent to a third party simply said in part 'we are starving and need food and water,'" the sheriff said in a statement.

"I absolutely knew that we couldn't wait on another agency to step up and we had to go check this out as soon as possible."

The sheriff described planning "a tactical approach for our own safety because we had learned the occupants were most likely heavily armed."

On the morning of August 3, a dozen officers kicked off the "all day" operation, discovering hidden beneath New Mexico's scrubland the two men with an AR-15 rifle, five loaded 30-round magazines and four loaded pistols, including one in Wahhaj's pocket.

The men had refused to follow verbal direction, police said, who added the raid went without major incident or injuries even as Wahhaj needed to be "taken down."

Police found many more ammo rounds in the ramshackle hideout, they said, which they described as "a small travel trailer buried in the ground covered by plastic with no water, plumbing, or electricity."

"The only food we saw were a few potatoes and a box of rice in the filthy trailer," Hogrefe said. "But what was most surprising, and heartbreaking was when the team located a total of five adults and 11 children that looked like third world country refugees."

"Not only with no food or fresh water, but with no shoes, personal hygiene and basically dirty rags for clothing."

Morten was charged with harboring a fugitive and Wahhaj was booked without bond on his Georgia warrant for child abduction.

Three women thought to be parents of the children -- who are now in protective custody -- were also detained for questioning. They were released pending further investigation.

None of the adults would give details about the whereabouts of the missing toddler, but police believe he was at the compound a few weeks ago.</s>On Friday, 11 children between the ages of one and 15 years old were found living in extreme poverty on a remote compound outside Amalia, New Mexico, after the Taos County Sheriff’s Department was forwarded a note, believed to have written by someone inside, pleading, “We are starving and need food and water.”

“I absolutely knew that we couldn’t wait on another agency to step up, and we had to go check this out as soon as possible,” Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said in a statement posted to the department’s Facebook page on Saturday. “We all gave the kids our water and what snacks we had — it was the saddest living conditions and poverty I have seen.”

While the note gave local police probable cause to investigate, authorities from Clayton County, Georgia, and the FBI had been monitoring the compound for two months as part of an ongoing search for a missing three-year-old boy allegedly abducted by his father late last year.

During the raid, the boy’s father, Siraj Wahhaj, was found and arrested on a Georgia warrant for the alleged child abduction, and another Clayton County man, Lucas Morten, was taken into custody and is being held on suspicion of aiding a fugitive. The missing child, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, was not among the 11 children rescued, but there was allegedly evidence indicating he had been there in recent weeks.

According to local Georgia news coverage, the little boy was reported missing by his mother on December 10th, but the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children lists his disappearance as November 29th. According to the boy’s mother, Wahhaj had taken his son to the park on December 1st, and then never returned; it’s not clear why she waited over a week to report the disappearance. The child reportedly has a medical condition that causes him to suffer from seizures, and there’s concern that he does not have his regular medication with him.

Wahhaj and his son were reportedly last seen on December 13th in Alabama, where their vehicle was involved in a minor accident. Authorities there say the pair were in the company of two other adults and five children, who indicated that they were on their way to New Mexico for a camping trip.

Following Friday’s raid on the compound, three women, believed to be the children’s mothers, were detained for questioning, but they were eventually released after they refused to cooperate. The 11 children, according to the Sheriff’s Department’s statement, all appeared to be malnourished, were wearing “basically dirty rags for clothing” and no shoes, and their makeshift home had no water, plumbing or electricity, and very little food. They are now in state protective custody.

In a statement, New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) Secretary Monique Jacobson said, “CYFD has been working around the clock on this case. We will continue to work closely with Law Enforcement on this investigation. The children are in our custody and our number one priority right now is their health and safety.”

While the compound lacked basic necessities, authorities discovered an AR-15 rifle, five 30-round magazines and four loaded pistols. Sheriff Hogrefe claimed in an interview with the Santa Fe New Mexican that FBI analysts told him that Wahhaj and Morten appeared to be “extremists of the Muslim belief.”

“You know how the Muslim women and children are treated,” Hogrefe went on. “Men are the authority supreme.”

FBI spokesperson Frank Fisher declined to comment on the investigation, including Hogrefe’s claim that the suspects engaged in religious extremism.</s>(Reuters) - Deputies who raided a squalid compound surrounded by tires and an earthen berm in rural New Mexico have arrested two men and taken 11 children into protective custody for their own health and safety, the sheriff said.

Three women believed to be the children’s mothers also were detained during last week’s sweep, which followed a two-month investigation by authorities in New Mexico and Georgia as well as the FBI, Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said in a statement on the department’s Facebook page.

Hogrefe said in the statement that Siraj Wahhaj, 39, was taken into custody on a warrant accusing him of abducting his 3-year-old son. Lucas Morten was arrested on suspicion of harboring a fugitive.

The missing boy was not found at the compound outside the unincorporated community of Amalia, New Mexico, near the Colorado state line, Hogrefe said, but “it is reasonably believed he was there a few weeks ago.”

Hogrefe said Wahhaj was armed with an AR15-style rifle and four loaded pistols when he was taken into custody. It was not immediately clear if the two suspects, who are both from Clayton County, Georgia, had retained criminal defense attorneys.

The sheriff said the compound was made up of a small travel trailer buried in the ground and covered with a tarp, providing no running water, plumbing or electricity.

“The only food we saw were a few potatoes and a box of rice in the filthy trailer,” Hogrefe said. “But what was most surprising, and heartbreaking was when the team located a total of five adults and 11 children that looked like third world country refugees not only with no food or fresh water, but with no shoes, personal hygiene and basically dirty rags for clothing.”</s>Message led to discovery of 11 kids in New Mexico compound

TAOS, N.M. (AP) — A message from someone inside a makeshift compound in rural northern New Mexico that people were starving is what led to the discovery of 11 children living in filthy conditions.

Taos County Sheriff's officials say the children, ranging from age 1 to 15, were removed from the compound in the small community of Amalia and turned over to state child-welfare workers.

Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe says two men were arrested during the search — one on a Georgia child abduction warrant and the other on suspicion of harboring a fugitive.

Hogrefe says they were the saddest living conditions he's ever seen.

He says there was little food in the compound, which consisted of a small travel trailer buried in the ground and covered by plastic with no water, plumbing or electricity.
Police in New Mexico rescue 11 malnourished children being kept in squalid conditions in a remote desert compound.