A woman heard them crying in the next cabin and then saw them and could identify one of them, the official said. Six-year-old Alessia and Livia Schepp were abducted by their father on January 30, Swiss police said.
They were spotted on the boat the following day, French prosecutor Jacques Dallest said. The father, Matthias Schepp, 43, committed suicide February 3 on a railway in Cerignola, Italy, about 60 miles kilometers west of Bari, a spokesman for the Swiss police said this week.
Dallest, a prosecutor in Marseille, France, said it is possible that the girls' father killed them on the boat and threw their bodies overboard. But after 11 days this seems unlikely," Dallest said. Their mother, Irina Lucidi, said Wednesday that it was "encouraging" to know the girls had been seen on the ferry. We know they were last seen on a ferry to Corsica so to all those people who might have seen them, even if you think the information is trivial, please contact the police so we can find them alive," she on CNN affiliate BFM TV in France.
The search for Alessia and Livia Schepp has stretched to three countries -- Switzerland, France, and Italy, police said.
Police had discovered earlier that Schepp had bought ferry tickets for himself and his two daughters and validated them at the French port of Marseille, intending to go to the Corsican port of Propriano. Authorities have dubbed their search Operation Gemelle, which means "twins" in Italian. Interpol issued an international Yellow Notice missing persons alert for the girls Saturday. Such notices are distributed to police in Interpol's member countries to help find missing people, especially children.
