A 9-year-old boy was rescued this week after living locked in his father’s utility van in eastern France since 2024, according to the local prosecutor. Authorities said after forcing the van open, they found a child “lying in a fetal position, naked, covered by a blanket on top of a mound of trash and near excrement,″ reported AP.
The child was clearly malnourished and could no longer walk, because he had been in a seated position for so long, it said.
Authorities said the child has been hospitalised, and his father detained.
How did the incident come to light?
The incident came to light on Monday, 6 April – after police were alerted by a neighbour to “sounds of a child” coming from a van in village of Hagenbach near the borders of Switzerland and Germany.
The victim’s father told investigators that he put the child in the truck last year in November ″to protect him,″ because his partner wanted to send the boy to a psychiatric hospital, the prosecutor said. The child was 7-years-old at that time.
The prosecutor, however, said there was no medical record that the boy had any psychiatric problems before he disappeared, and that the boy had had good grades in school, mentioned AP’s report.
What the child told investigators
The boy told investigators that he had “big difficulties” with his father’s partner, and thought his father ”’had no choice″ but to lock him up, according to the prosecutor.
Child’s father in custody
The father was handed preliminary kidnapping and other charges and kept in custody. His partner denied knowledge that the boy was in the van, according to the prosecutor. She was handed preliminary charges, including for failure to help a minor in danger, and released under judicial supervision.
The prosecutor’s office is investigating whether others were aware of the locked-up boy. Friends and family told investigators they thought the boy was in a psychiatric institution. His teachers were told he had transferred to a different school, according to the prosecutor’s office.
(with inputs from agencies)
