A 9-year-old found locked in a utility van since 2024, malnourished and unable to walk [View all]

Source: AP

Updated 5:38 AM CDT, April 11, 2026
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PARIS (AP) — 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. The child has been hospitalized, and his father detained.

Police were alerted by a neighbor to “sounds of a child’’ coming from a van on Monday in the village of Hagenbach near the borders of Switzerland and Germany, according to a statement from Prosecutor Nicolas Heitz provided Saturday.

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,″ the statement said. The child was clearly malnourished and could no longer walk, because he had been in a seated position for so long, it said.

The boy’s father told investigators that he put the child in the truck in November 2024 ″to protect him,″ because his partner wanted to send the boy to a psychiatric hospital, the prosecutor said. The boy was 7 at the time.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/france-boy-trapped-van-father-charged-hagenbach-0888b35ffb0f1f4b298270905e9e0a2d