Khaberni - French officials said today, Saturday, that authorities rescued this week a 9-year-old child who had been imprisoned in a cargo truck owned by his father in the east of the country since 2024.
The child was taken to the hospital and his father was detained.
A neighbor informed the police about "the sound of a child coming from a van on Monday, in the village of Hagenbach near the Swiss and German borders," according to a statement from the local District Attorney Nicolas Heitz today, Saturday.
After the police forcibly opened the van, they found a child "in the fetal position, naked and covered with a blanket on top of a pile of trash and near feces."
The police added that it was clear the child had been malnourished and could no longer walk due to the position he had been in for a long time.
The prosecutor said, quoting the child's father to the investigators, that he placed him in the truck in November (November) 2024 "to protect him" because his partner wanted to send the child to a psychiatric hospital. The child was then seven years old.
The prosecutor said that there is no medical record that the boy had any psychological problems before his disappearance, and that he had been getting good grades at school.
The child told the investigators that he had "significant difficulties" with his father's partner and that he believed his father "had no other choice" but to put him in the van, according to the prosecutor. He said that he had not taken a bath since 2024.
The authorities did not announce the name of the victim or the names of the family members.
