Three children around 11 years old were hospitalized Friday after suffering a "nervous breakdown" apparently caused by being locked in a room by grocery store security guards.
The children were put into a room by security guards at a supermarket in Yuzhnoye Butovo in south Moscow after they were caught trying to steal one or more marmelad, a kind of gummy candy, Interfax reported, citing an unidentified employee in the Moscow healthcare sector.
One of the children panicked and called his mother, telling her that they had been detained. The mother called the police and said the supermarket was holding children illegally.
The police arrived at the store along with an ambulance, which the mother had called as well.
The ambulance personnel learned that the security guards had locked the children in a room and apparently called the parents of one of the children to have a "preventive discussion." The security guards did not call the police.
The health workers diagnosed the children with a severe nervous breakdown and took them to the hospital, where they were in "moderately severe" condition at 2 p.m., the news agency said.
The police are conducting an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the theft of the marmelad and into the actions of the supermarket employees, a Southwest Administrative District police spokesman told Interfax.
