Three brothers arrested in stunning US kidnap

US: US police searched an ordinary home in a working class neighbourhood of Cleveland on Tuesday after three women who had been missing for around a decade were rescued from an alleged kidnapping.

Three brothers have been arrested in the midwestern city after one of the women managed to alert a neighbour who broke down the door to lead her and her six-year-old daughter to freedom. Police responding to a desperate 911 emergency call found two more women in the unremarkable two-story home with an American flag on the porch. All had been reported missing in separate incidents around 10 years ago.

Journalists and local residents descended on Seymour Avenue, where officers had sealed off the property with barriers and crime scene tape, astonished that anyone could have kept such a crime quiet for so long.

The women -- Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight -- were freed on Monday night and examined at a local hospital before being released to their families. The FBI was due to interview them.

Police confirmed that Berry, now 27, has a six-year-old daughter, apparently born while she was in captivity.

The three Ohio women were abducted separately in 2002, 2003 and 2004 but were found together in the home of 52-year-old Ariel Castro, not far from where each disappeared. Castro and his brothers -- Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50 -- have been detained. Police mugshots revealed them to be thick-set men with gray beards.

AFP