Two brothers, aged 7 and 8, who had been missing from their home in Orestiada, northeastern Greece, since last month and became the subject of a nationwide appeal, were given up by their parents for illegal adoption, police said yesterday.

An Amber Alert campaign, which saw television announcements and the distribution of flyers giving details of Aihan and Ahmet Tseribasi’s disappearance, had failed to yield any results.

But officers said that the children’s mother yielded during questioning over the weekend and admitted that the youngsters had been handed over to their uncle, who found someone to adopt them. The boys’ parents have been arrested.

Police said yesterday that they did not know the whereabouts of the children or their uncle, whose wife was also arrested.

It was not immediately clear why the boys’ parents allegedly gave up the children for adoption.