LYON, France (AFP) – French security forces had not yet encountered this Sunday night for two armed fugitives, suspected members of the ETA armed group, which escaped Saturday at a police control in central France, according to police.

On Saturday afternoon a patrol of the police began a pursuit of two men after they refused to undergo a control.

It all started in the morning, when a person responsible for a gas station in Saint-Honore-les-Bains (Nièvre) provided the police a description of the occupants of the car whose driver was refused to pay the entire bill for gasoline.

After a chase, the two men fled on foot in a forest after having a shot into the air, leaving his car accident which documents were found in the Basque language (Euskera) that can be attributed to ETA, according to a judicial source.

For nearly 24 hours, up to 250 police, supportedby teams dogs and a helicopter, tracked in detail, but to no avail, the forest sector in Moulins-Engilbert (Southeastern Nièvre), sometimes under intense rain, told AFP the captain Philippe Marestin. The search in this area were arrested on Sunday at half-time, he said. We explored the woods and this helped to clarify the doubt.

But the search in all the Nièvre department and neighboring departments that have been contacted, added the official, making stressed that the weather conditions are unfavorable over and run the risk of altering the footprint. We do not know if they still go on foot, could steal a car and can also be hidden in one place, observed the captain Marestin.

According to the testimony of one responsible for service station , contacted by telephone by the AFP, who asked to remain anonymous, two men drove a Citroën Picasso registered Puy-de-Dôme, had some thirty years and at least one of them spoke with foreign accents. They tried to lower the bill, then warn the police giving a description of the vehicle, he added.

The car was abandoned by the fugitives in the hands of the technical and scientific police, seeking evidence . And the investigation of the case is handled by the Anti-Terrorist Branch (SDAT) and the Paris prosecutor, said the official, who did not wish to elaborate on the course of the investigation.