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| Missing Japanese boy Yamato Tanooka is found alive after six days | Missing Japanese boy Yamato Tanooka is found alive after six days |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A seven-year-old boy who went missing in bear-inhabited forests in northern Japan after his parents said they abandoned him as punishment, has been found alive, according to authorities. | A seven-year-old boy who went missing in bear-inhabited forests in northern Japan after his parents said they abandoned him as punishment, has been found alive, according to authorities. |
| Yamato Tanooka was found by military personnel in a hut on one of its exercise areas 5km from where he is believed to have gone missing and had sustained only cuts. | |
| The doctor treating him said: “He was incredibly calm considering he had been missing for seven days. He didn’t panic at all.” | |
| JUST IN: Missing Japanese boy left in the woods by his parents found unharmed, police say. https://t.co/mGxk27Mmq4 pic.twitter.com/W5dzEPwJw6 | JUST IN: Missing Japanese boy left in the woods by his parents found unharmed, police say. https://t.co/mGxk27Mmq4 pic.twitter.com/W5dzEPwJw6 |
| Yamato has been missing since Saturday after his parents said they made him get out of their car on a mountain road because he was misbehaving. He was reportedly without food or water. | |
| Related: Desperate hunt continues for Japanese boy left in forest by parents as punishment | Related: Desperate hunt continues for Japanese boy left in forest by parents as punishment |
| The parents originally told police their son had got lost while they were out hiking to gather wild vegetables but later said they were angry and tried to punish him because he had thrown stones at cars and people. | |
| News agency Kyodo said the boy was found at about 7.50am on Friday by military personnel in a building on an exercise area in the town of Shikabe in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. The area is about 5 km away from where he went missing, or 7km if travelling via the region’s forest paths. | |
| A police spokesman said: “A Self Defence Force official who was on a drill found a boy whose age appeared to be seven. | |
| “There was no conspicuous external injury, and the boy introduced himself as Yamato Tanooka.” | “There was no conspicuous external injury, and the boy introduced himself as Yamato Tanooka.” |
| According to a SDF soldier who is familiar with the building but wasn’t there when they found him, the boy was “curled up” on a mattress and not visibly injured. The soldiers gave him rice balls and bread when he said he was hungry and thirsty. | According to a SDF soldier who is familiar with the building but wasn’t there when they found him, the boy was “curled up” on a mattress and not visibly injured. The soldiers gave him rice balls and bread when he said he was hungry and thirsty. |
| The boy told police he had been in the drill area for several days after walking alone in the forest, Kyodo reported. However, TV Asahi and the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper reported the boy told police he had walked to the hut inside the military base and taken shelter there on Saturday night, the day he went missing. While he had no food, it appears he did have access to water. | |
| Manabu Takehara, a Self-Defence Force (SDF) spokesman, told AFP: “He looked in good health, but he was sent to hospital by medical helicopter.” | |
| NHK TV said his parents identified their son. Yamato is now undergoing tests at the hospital in the city of Hakodate. The doctor treating Yamato refused to say how his parents reacted when the family were reunited this morning, citing privacy reasons. | |
| The area of forest in which Yamato went missing has experienced heavy rainfall, with overnight temperatures dropping to 7 degrees C (44F). | The area of forest in which Yamato went missing has experienced heavy rainfall, with overnight temperatures dropping to 7 degrees C (44F). |
| The building where the boy was found is a one-storey wooden hut with no heating. The SDF hold meetings there but it also doubles as sleeping quarters during exercises. It has two doors but one of them had been left unlocked. | |
| More than 180 rescuers have been searching for Yamato, with the military joining the search on Wednesday. The local town of Nanae requested military support after four days of fruitless searching, with heavy rains at times hampering the search. | More than 180 rescuers have been searching for Yamato, with the military joining the search on Wednesday. The local town of Nanae requested military support after four days of fruitless searching, with heavy rains at times hampering the search. |
| “We asked the SDF to go into places which people can’t easily access, such as deep crevasses along creeks,” town spokesman Mitsuru Wakayama told AFP. | “We asked the SDF to go into places which people can’t easily access, such as deep crevasses along creeks,” town spokesman Mitsuru Wakayama told AFP. |