A 17-year-old British teenager was found on Wednesday, six years after he disappeared.
According to the BBC, Alex Batty was found by a driver in the Toulouse area, in the south of France. The young man used the driver’s cell phone to send a message to his grandmother via Facebook, saying: “Hello, Grandma, it’s me, Alex. I’m in France, Toulouse. I hope you get this message. I love you, I want to come home.”
The driver, Fabien Accidini, found the boy in the early morning hours, walking along the road. “He explained to me that he had walked for four days from a place in the mountains, but he didn’t say where,” the driver said, adding that he looked up Alex Batty’s name on the Internet and saw that he was wanted.
Accidini further explained that the young man’s plan was to reach a city that had an embassy to ask for help. The driver eventually contacted French authorities.
The British teenager disappeared in 2017 when he was 11 years old, after going on holiday to Marbella, Spain, with his mother and grandfather, who do not have parental custody of the young man. The grandmother, who has parental custody, believed Alex was in a spiritual community in Morocco.
The young man was last seen in the port of Malaga on October 8, 2017.
The British teenager had been living in a commune in France for two years. However, he did not say where his mother was.
Alex Batty is now in a youth center in Toulouse and could return to Britain within hours, the city’s public prosecutor told the BBC.
The grandmother stated that she had been in contact with her grandson. “I’m very happy. I spoke to him and he’s doing well,” he said.
Source: DN
