(CNN) The 11 children were so famished, the sheriff said, they "looked like third-world country refugees."

But they weren't found in an underdeveloped country. They were discovered in a remote New Mexico compound where an underground trailer kept them hidden from the outside world.

"The only food we saw were a few potatoes and a box of rice in the filthy trailer," Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said.

"But what was most surprising and heartbreaking was when the team located a total of five adults and 11 children that looked like third-world country refugees not only with no food or fresh water, but with no shoes, personal hygiene and basically dirty rags for clothing."

It's not clear how long the 11 children and five adults were living in these squalid conditions.

Authorities were tipped off to the scene in Amalia, near the Colorado border, after someone forwarded a message believed to be from a third party. The message said, in part, "we are starving and need food and water."

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