British boy Alex Batty was eleven years old when he disappeared during a holiday in Spain.
Six years later, he has been found – walking in the rain along a road in southern France, reports the BBC and other European media.
Eleven-year-old Alex Batty from Great Britain went on holiday to Spain in 2017 with his grandfather and mother, who did not have custody of him. Since then he has been missing – until now.
On Thursday, a motorist discovered the boy – walking in the rain along a country road near Toulouse in the south of France. When the driver Fabien Accidini searched online and saw that Alex Batty had been reported missing, he contacted the police and let the boy borrow a phone.
“I want to come home”
“Hi grandma, it’s me, Alex. I am Toulouse in France. I really hope you get this message. I love you and want to come home,” the now 17-year-old boy wrote to his grandmother, who is his guardian.
French investigators are now trying to map what Alex Batty’s life has been like. According to the boy himself, he and his mother and grandfather have lived a wandering life, in recent years near the Pyrenees in southern France. He is said not to have been enrolled in school.
The whereabouts of Alex Batty’s mother are unclear and his grandfather is believed to have died six months ago.
Went for four days
According to French authorities, the boy finally decided to “get his life back in Britain” after the mother expressed plans to move to Finland with him.
– He then decided to leave the place where he was with his mother and he walked and walked for four days and four nights, says Antoine Leroy, at the prosecutor’s office in Toulouse.
In a statement, the boy’s grandmother Susan Caruana expressed great joy and relief that he was found in good health: “I spoke to him last night and it was so nice to hear his voice and see his face again. I can hardly bear to see him when we are reunited.”