Algerian authorities reported earlier this month that they had found the missing Algerian man alive and being held captive in his cellar by his neighbor, after 26 years of searching. The guy went missing in 1998.
According to Al Jazeera, the man, known as Omar bin Omran or Omar B, vanished when he was 19 years old. Given that the incident happened during the nation’s civil war, it was long believed that he had been abducted and murdered.
Years later, at the age of 45, he was discovered alive and being held captive by a neighbor in a sheepfold surrounded by haystacks, only 200 meters from his former residence in the northern Algerian region of Djelfa.
The ministry added that the victim was receiving medical and psychological attention in addition to providing updates on the ongoing investigation into the horrible act.
Police arrested the suspected captor, a 61-year-old doorman, as he was trying to leave the area.
The kidnapping was only discovered when the suspect’s brother posted the vital details on social media, allegedly as a result of an inheritance dispute between the brothers.
A court official described the rescue in detail, saying, “On May 12 at 8 pm local time, [they] found victim Omar bin Omran, aged 45, in the cellar of his neighbor, BA, aged 61.”
In 2013, Omar’s mother passed away without knowing what became to her son.
Al Jazeera reported that sources from Algerian media suggested Omar told his captors that he could see his family in the distance but was unable to shout out because of a “spell” that his kidnapper allegedly put upon him.
Omar’s survival was a long-standing mystery that has plagued his community since the dark days of Algeria’s civil war, but now it has been resolved.
Many families are still searching for their loved ones who vanished in the 1990s, when war claimed the lives of almost 200,000 people, earning Algeria the somber nickname “Black Decade.”
About 8,000 Algerians disappeared between 1992 and 1998 alone, according to SOS Disparus, an Algerian organization honoring individuals who were forced to go during the conflict.
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