BENEATH the weeds of an overgrown railway line, orange- suited police made the discovery yesterday that confirmed the nation’s worst fears. In a hidden storm drain they found the bodies of the two schoolgirls whose disappearance three weeks ago had left Belgium haunted by the spectre of Marc Dutroux’s paedophile killings.

Their bodies were lying just 500 yards from the spot where they were last seen, dressed in the clothes that they were wearing when they disappeared. Investigators said that they had been swept there by heavy rains in recent days.

The search ended in agony for their parents, recrimination for investigators and a renewed bout of national soulsearching.

The remains of stepsisters Stacy Lemmens, 7, and Nathalie Mahy, 10, were found after deep undergrowth had been cleared. The spot — which had been searched twice previously — was near the café where their parents were drinking when the girls were first missed in the early hours of June 10.

Post-mortem examinations may be able to establish when they died, but Cedric Visart de Bocarme, the Liège prosecutor, said they had been murdered.

As questions were asked about why it took police so long to find the bodies, Stacy’s mother, Christiane Granziero, went to the city’s hospital to view her child’s remains. It appeared that the discovery was a result of systematic searching rather than any information given by the suspect — a convicted child rapist — who has been in custody for two weeks. It was also revealed that De Telegraaf, a Dutch newspaper, had received an anonymous letter containing two street maps, suggesting that the girls would be found near the railway line. However, the bodies were discovered more than a mile from the location marked on the map.

“The hunt for the culprit or culprits is now a priority and everything possible will be done to shed light on the case as soon as possible,” M Visart de Bocarme said.

The disappearance brought back memories of Marc Dutroux, whose two youngest victims, Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, both 8, were snatched from the streets of Liège a decade ago.

Outrage at police incompetence in that case sparked the country’s largest demonstrations and destroyed confidence in the judicial system.

Last night Guy Verhofstadt, the Prime Minister, said on television: “In all our hearts there is a feeling of repugnance, of sorrow and powerlessness. We cannot comprehend what motivates these people.”

Crown Prince Phillippe, heir to the Belgian throne, said that he would cut short a trip to Moscow. “As parents we want to express our feelings with the parents,” he told reporters in the Russian capital.

Elio Di Rupo, the leader of the Wallonia region, said that the discovery of the bodies marked “a new black day for Belgium”. Residents in the largely immigrant neighbourhood tried to comprehend the incomprehensible. With tears in her eyes, Nadine Hartmann said: “They took little Stacy . . . the whole neighborhood is in shock.”

Joëlle Van Lierde, a teacher from Liège, said: “I am shocked. Dutroux was a parent’s worst nightmare and I prayed it would not happen again. I cannot believe it has.”

Others were angry. “It’s absurd that it took police more than two weeks to find them when they were so close by,” another resident, Andre Deaelcominette, said.

A twice-convicted child rapist, Abdallah Aid Oud, has been charged with the girls’ kidnapping and has been held since handing himself in on June 13, three days after police said they were looking for him.

Mr Oud, 39, a Belgian of Morrocan origin, was at the bar when the girls were last seen, but then vanished. He told the police he had nothing to do with their disappearance, claiming he had been incapacitated by alcohol and cocaine. The news that he had been released provoked a national outcry.

Stacy and Nathalie, who came from troubled families, were last seen at 1.30am by an inflatable castle outside the Café Les Armuriers, where Nathalie’s mother, Catherine Dizier, and Stacy’s father, Thierry Lemmens, were drinking, surrounded by their four other children. The couple noticed the girls were missing only when they tried to round up their family to go home.

NATIONAL SHAME

Marc Dutroux

Arrested in 1986 for abduction and rape of five girls, freed in 1992 under a government scheme to monitor sex offenders. Went on to kidnap and abuse six girls of whom only Sabine Dardenne and Laetitia Delhez were found alive

Andras Pandy

“Diabolical pastor” convicted in 2002 of murdering his two wives, two sons and two stepdaughters to conceal the rape of his daughter and stepdaughters, one of whom had his child. His daughter Anthea assisted in four of the murders, including that of her mother

Michel Fourniret

French forestry worker arrested in Belgium in 2003 after he kidnapped a 13-year-old girl who escaped and alerted the police. He is suspected of assaulting and killing more than 20 girls and women in France and Belgium, including 12-year-old Belgian girl Elisabeth Brichet. He was denounced by his wife, who had participated in several of the murders