A 2-year-old boy was found safe and sound in Valence on Sunday 5th May, 2019, a few hours after his abduction in Marseille and the outbreak of the abduction plan.
A boy of 2 years, kidnapped in the center of Marseille , in the district of Canebière Sunday, May 5, 2019, was found safe and sound in a hotel of Valence (Drôme) with his kidnapper.
The disappearance of the child, an African-style boy named Osnachi , around 12:40, had been the subject of an “abduction alert” broadcast on all media.
Small Osnachi “is fine,” Xavier Tarabeux, a public prosecutor, told AFP. He added that the kidnapping alert had been lifted and that the boy was going to undergo medical examinations. The abductor, who has a criminal record, was taken into custody .
A stranger in the family
“It was the night watchman of the hotel who saw the abduction alert on TV and called the police,” said Xavier Tarabeux. The prosecutor had made the decision, about two hours earlier, to broadcast an “abduction alert” after the disappearance of the child with an unknown man.
In a statement, the authorities said the suspect was “a European type man measuring 1m80, white skin with a nascent beard of very thin body, aged about 35 years.”
The child escaped the vigilance of his mother while she attended a religious service in an evangelical prayer room of Canebière when the kidnapping took place, told the press the Marseille prosecutor Xavier Tarabeux. He then “found himself outside,” added Xavier Tarabeux.
Osnachi was then seen on CCTV footage “on La Canebière with a man in his forties, carrying a beard who appears to be an alcoholic,” the magistrate said, adding that the kidnapper had demonstrated “no violence”.
The mother of the child, who does not speak French, but English, did not recognize this man in pictures that were presented to him.
They were then seen shortly before 3:00 pm at the Saint Charles station in Marseille, where the investigators had lost their track. A tracking dog had been hired but without success.
23rd “abduction alert”
The “Abduction Alert” plan is an immediate and massive warning device deployed to assist in the search for an alleged abducted child. It is largely inspired by the “Amber Alert” plan, created in Texas in 1996, after the kidnapping and murder of little Amber Hagerman.
Adopted in France in February 2006, it consists in launching in the event of abduction of minor child a massive alert to mobilize the population in the search for the abducted child and its kidnapper.
It is activated only if several criteria are met: it requires a proven abduction and not a simple disappearance, the victim must be minor and his physical integrity or his life must be in danger; information must be used to locate the child.
It was officially launched for the first time on July 9th, 2006 after the disappearance of two sisters, Emeline and Mélissa, 8 and 10 years old, in Maine-et-Loire. This case had turned out to be an irrelevant alert, as the two girls had returned home some fifteen hours after their disappearance.
The last “Abduction Alert” was launched in January 2018, after his father abducted Tizio hospital, a 2-month-old baby, fed by gastric tube and intravenous, in danger of death. The child was found healthy the next day.
In the 22 other cases where this procedure has already been initiated in France, the wanted children were found, most of the time a few hours or a few days after their disappearance.
