\n<\/p>\n
Paris– <\/span>A 9-year-old boy was rescued this week after being locked in his father’s utility van in eastern France for 20 years, according to a local prosecutor. The child has been admitted to the hospital and his father has been detained.<\/p>\n Police were alerted by a neighbor about hearing “a child’s voice” coming from a van on Monday in the village of Hagenbach, near the border with Switzerland and Germany, according to a statement from prosecutor Nikolaus Heitz on Saturday.<\/p>\n After forcing open the van, they found a child “in a fetal position, naked, covered with a blanket on top of a pile of garbage and lying near a stool”, the statement said. The child was clearly malnourished and could no longer walk, as he had been sitting for so long.<\/p>\n The boy’s father told investigators he placed the child in the truck “for safety” in November 2024 because his partner wanted to send the boy to a psychiatric hospital, the prosecutor said. The boy was 7 years old at that time.<\/p>\n The prosecutor said there were no medical records indicating the boy had any mental problems before his disappearance and that the boy had good grades in school.<\/p>\n According to the prosecutor, the boy told investigators that he had “big difficulties” with his father’s partner, and he thought his father had “no choice” but to lock him up. He said that he has not taken bath since 2024.<\/p>\n The father was initially charged with kidnapping and other charges and detained. According to the prosecutor, her partner denied that the boy was in the van. He was charged with preliminary charges, including failure to render aid to a minor in danger, and released under judicial supervision.<\/p>\n The boy’s 12-year-old sister and the 10-year-old daughter of his father’s partner were placed in the care of social services.<\/p>\n The prosecutor’s office is investigating whether other people had information about the locked up boy. Friends and family told investigators they thought the boy was in a psychiatric institution. According to the prosecutor’s office, his teachers were told he had been transferred to a different school.<\/p>\n Authorities did not release the names of the victims or family members.<\/p>\n Village residents reached by The Associated Press expressed surprise Saturday at what happened and said they were unaware of the boy’s whereabouts but did not want to discuss details. <\/p>\n The prosecutor declined further comment to the AP pending further investigation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Paris– A 9-year-old boy was rescued this week after being locked in his father’s utility van in eastern France for 20 years, according to a local prosecutor. The child has been admitted to the hospital and his father has been detained. Police were alerted by a neighbor about hearing “a child’s voice” coming from a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1355,8906,19709,11975,14149,11307,329,218],"class_list":{"0":"post-57122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-boy","9":"tag-locked","10":"tag-malnourished","11":"tag-unable","12":"tag-utility","13":"tag-van","14":"tag-walk","15":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57123,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57122\/revisions\/57123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}