RESCUE CALL

Shock Discovery After ‘Sounds of a Child’ Inside Van

Officers who responded to a neighbor’s report of a child’s voice coming from a van made an alarming discovery.

A malnourished 9-year-old boy has been rescued by police who were alerted to the “sounds of a child” coming from a van by a concerned neighbor. Officers in the village of Hagenbach, eastern France, found the boy “lying in a fetal position, naked, covered by a blanket on top of a mound of trash and near excrement″ inside a van he had been locked in since 2024, prosecutor Nicolas Heitz said in a statement, according to the Associated Press. The boy, who was unable to walk after remaining in a seated position for so long, was hospitalized after being rescued on Monday. His father was detained and handed preliminary kidnapping and other charges, according to AP. He told investigators that he had confined his son in the van since November 2024 “to protect him” because his partner wanted to send the boy to a psychiatric hospital, according to Heitz. The prosecutor added that the boy’s medical record showed no psychiatric problems before his disappearance. The boy described “big difficulties” with his father’s partner and said he believed his father was left with “no choice” but to lock him up, according to Heitz. The father’s partner has also been handed preliminary charges, including for failure to help a minor in danger, according to AP.