Police say the man, first reported missing in 1998, was being held by a 61-year-old neighbor just minutes from his home.
An Algerian man who went missing in 1998 during the civil war was found living in his neighbor’s cellar 26 years later, authorities say.
The country’s Justice Ministry said Tuesday that the man, alternately identified as Omar bin Omran or Omar B, disappeared when he was 19 and had long been presumed to have been kidnapped or killed.
But he was found alive earlier this week, at the age of 45, after being held captive by a neighbor in a sheepfold hidden by haystacks, just 200 meters from his former home in Djelfa, in the northern Algeria.
The ministry said an investigation into the “heinous” crime was underway and the victim was receiving medical and psychological treatment.
Police arrested the suspected kidnapper, a 61-year-old doorman, after he tried to flee. The kidnapping was discovered after the suspect’s brother posted revealing information on social media, amid an alleged inheritance dispute between the siblings.
“On May 12 at 8 p.m. local time, (they) found the victim Omar bin Omran, aged 45, in the cellar of his neighbor BA, aged 61,” a court official said.
The victim’s mother died in 2013, while the family still believed he was probably dead. Algerian media reported that Ben Omran told his rescuers that he could sometimes see his family from afar, but felt unable to call because of a “spell” his captor had cast on him.
The discovery made on Sunday by Bin Omran solves a mystery that has persisted in his community since the bloody civil war in Algeria. Relatives of war victims are still demanding justice for their missing or deceased loved ones.
Around 200,000 people were killed in the 1990s during the war between the government and Islamist fighters. This period is sometimes referred to as Algeria’s “black decade”.
Up to 20,000 people are believed to have been kidnapped during the war, which ended in 2002. According to SOS Disparus, an Algerian association of people forcibly disappeared during the war, around 8,000 Algerians disappeared between 1992 and 1998 alone.
News Source : www.aljazeera.com
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