Two toddlers are in protective custody and a Rhode Island couple is under arrest after federal marshals found the pair of fugitives in Waterbury on Monday, the U.S. Marshals Service said.

Jesueily Sanchez was fleeing charges of cruelty/neglect of a child and Tyshaun Peete was wanted for failure to appear on charges of carrying a pistol without a license and resisting arrest, Deputy U.S. Marshal Matthew Duffy said.

Rhode Island’s chief deputy U.S. marshal said the children were living under “unimaginable conditions of squalor and abuse.”

Members of a Rhode Island fugitive task force worked with their counterparts in Connecticut to find Sanchez and Peete. When they learned where they were, they joined forces with city police and descended on a Waterbury apartment, Duffy said.

The two children were taken from the home and placed into the custody of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, he said. One of them had been listed in Rhode Island as missing and endangered.

Waterbury police are pursuing additional risk of injury charges and charges of cruelty to a person against both Sanchez and Peete, Duffy said. The pair will eventually be returned to Rhode Island to face the charges from that state.

“The toddlers recovered today did not have a voice to advocate for themselves,” Robert Charette, Rhode Island’s chief deputy U.S. marshal, said. “They were living in unimaginable conditions of squalor and abuse. I commend the work of my deputy U.S. marshals here in Rhode Island, the Rhode Island State Police, deputy U.S. marshals in Connecticut and the Waterbury Police Department in recovering these toddlers this morning.

“The relentlessness displayed by these investigators is why these toddlers are now safe.”

Connecticut’s acting U.S. marshal, Lawrence J. Bobnick, also thanked DCF and health care workers from Waterbury Hospital who stepped up to “assist in the recuperation of these young children.”