Ohio - Three young women who vanished about a decade ago in the US state of Ohio have been found and are in hospital in a fair condition, officials have said.

Amanda Berry disappeared aged 16 in 2003, while Gina DeJesus went missing at the age of 14 a year later.

They and Michele Knight, 32, who vanished in 2002 at the age of 20, were found in a house in the city of Cleveland, police confirmed.

Three men have been arrested in connection with the case.


Photos of Berry (left) and DeJesus were distributed widely after they went missing Cleveland police said the suspects were all in their fifties.

Officers at the scene told reporters that the three men were brothers, and that one of them had lived in the house where the girls were found.

Meanwhile a doctor confirmed the three women were being kept in hospital for observation.

"This isn't the ending we usually hear to these stories," said Dr Gerald Maloney in a brief news conference outside Metro Health hospital in Cleveland. "We're very happy."

Speaking amid cheers from spectators, he added the women were able to speak to hospital staff but he declined to give further details.

The BBC's Jane Little says it was assumed the girls were dead, and the mother of one victim said she believed her daughter had been sold into slavery.

At least one of the women is reported to have a baby.

BBC