Amother and two of her children, aged four and four months, are dead and five-year-old girl is in a critical condition in intensive care in hospital after the woman leapt from a window of her third-floor apartment in Catanzaro holding them on Wednesday, sources said.

Police are investigating, with suicide-multiple homicide seen as the most likely hypothesis, the sources said.

It is not yet known if other people were in the apartment at the time.