Hundreds of children taken by the authorities from the compound of a polygamist sect in Texas had their first glimpse yesterday of the outside world — which they have been taught to view as evil and whose food they cannot eat.

The children, in 19th-century dresses, were bussed out of the Yearn For Zion (YFZ) ranch after a raid on the breakaway Mormon sect of Warren Jeffs, the jailed polygamist leader.

“They are like aliens — or we are like aliens to them,” Helen Pfluger, a volunteer at a local Baptist church who helped to care for the children, told The Times. “They know nothing of the outside world. The children and their mothers did not know what to do with crayons. Our food makes them sick because they are not used to processed food.

“It was like talking to people from 1870. Their clothing needs were the most difficult to fulfil. They need a dress for a four-year-old. They specified the dress should be long down to the ankles, have long arms, a loose waist, and be a solid colour in a pastel shade. I don’t think there is a place in Texas you can get a dress like that.”

Authorities raided the remote 690 hectare (1,700 acre) compound on Saturday after a teenage mother called a hotline to complain she had been beaten and raped by her husband. The 16-year-old girl, who has an eight-month-old daughter, was 15 when she allegedly married sect member Dale Barlow, 50, to become his seventh wife. In 2005 Texas raised the legal age limit for a girl to marry from 14 to 16 after concern about the sect.

The 10,000-strong Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints broke away from the Mormon Church in the 1930s after Mormon leaders outlawed polygamy.

Concentrated along the UtahArizona border, the sect bought a ranch outside Eldorado, Texas, in 2003 and built a four-storey temple and a small town on the site that is now the YFZ ranch.

The operation that began on Thursday was the largest since the Short Creek raid on the sect in 1953, when 400 fundamentalists including 236 children were taken into custody. A number of men were being held at the ranch while officials searched for evidence of abuse and whether the under-age girl was married to Barlow, a convicted sex offender. He pleaded no contest last year to conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor and is currently on probation.

Investigators said girls as young as 13 were groomed for sex. “There is a pervasive pattern and practice of indoctrinating and grooming minor female children to accept spiritual marriages to adult male members of the YFZ ranch resulting in them being sexually abused,” Lynn McFadden of the Texas family protection services, said.

The children, ranging from infants to teenage mothers, are being housed at an old army fort in San Angelo. About 133 women voluntarily accompanied them, and they are likely to be placed in foster homes unless their mothers agree to move out of the compound. Ms Pfluger said they seemed frightened by the outside world. “They had no TV, magazines or newspapers,” she said. “They did warm up with us, so they would smile and say a few words about their needs.”

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