{"id":5144,"date":"2026-04-11T21:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T21:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/5144\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T21:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T21:22:15","slug":"french-police-find-naked-boy-9-locked-in-fathers-van-since-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/5144\/","title":{"rendered":"French police find naked boy, 9, locked in father\u2019s van since 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">A nine-year-old boy has been rescued after living locked in his father\u2019s utility van in eastern France since 2024, according to the local prosecutor. The child has been hospitalised, and his father detained.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Police were alerted by a neighbour to the \u201csounds of a child\u201d coming from a van on Monday in the village of Hagenbach, near the borders with Switzerland and Germany, according to a statement on Saturday from prosecutor Nicolas Heitz.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">After forcing the van open, officers found the child \u201clying in a fetal position, naked, covered by a blanket on top of a mound of trash and near excrement\u201d, Heitz said.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The boy was clearly malnourished and could no longer walk after being in a seated position for so long, according to the statement.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The boy\u2019s father told investigators that he put the child in the truck in November 2024 \u201cto protect him\u201d because his partner wanted to send the then seven-year-old to a psychiatric hospital, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The building where a boy was rescued from his father\u2019s utility van is seen in Hagenbach, France, on Saturday. Photo: AP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/341d6d4b-77be-49ad-be62-2f4f26058339_32afda76.jpg\" title=\"The building where a boy was rescued from his father\u2019s utility van is seen in Hagenbach, France, on Saturday. Photo: AP\"\/>The building where a boy was rescued from his father\u2019s utility van is seen in Hagenbach, France, on Saturday. Photo: AP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Heitz said there was no medical record that the boy had any psychiatric problems before he disappeared and that he had had good grades in school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A nine-year-old boy has been rescued after living locked in his father\u2019s utility van in eastern France since&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4648,593,5,65,4637,1206,4649,4627,4651,4650,450],"class_list":["post-5144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-boy-in-van","tag-child-abuse","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-hagenbach","tag-kidnapping","tag-malnourished","tag-nicolas-heitz","tag-psychiatric-hospital","tag-social-services","tag-switzerland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}