A 45-year-old man who was found just minutes from his home after going missing as a teenager has explained why he couldn't call for help.
Authorities in Algeria discovered Omar Bin Omran in the home of a 61-year-old man in Djelfa, in northern Algeria, on Sunday (12 May).
His discovery came what is believed to be 27 years after Omran first went missing in 1997 in the midst of the Algerian Civil War.
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The then-19-year-old had been making his way to vocational school when he disappeared, and his family initially believed he had been kidnapped or murdered in a crime relating to the war.
However, they never stopped searching for him, and Omran's mother held out hope that her son would return up until her death in 2013.
She had no idea that just over a decade later, Omran would be discovered just 300 feet from the family's own home.
Authorities were tipped off to his possible whereabouts through a social media post made by the brother of the 61-year-old suspected captor.
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The post came amid an alleged dispute over inheritance, and suggested the man may have been involved in the kidnapping almost three decades ago.
“Following this report the General Prosecutor of the Court of Idrisiya in the province of Djelfa ordered the National Gendarmerie to open an in-depth investigation and officers went to the house in question," a court official said of Omran's discovery.
As investigators searched the home, they came across what is believed to have been some kind of sheep pen with hay covering the floor.
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Beneath the hay they discovered a trap door, inside which Omran was found alive.
The 45-year-old was quickly taken to a medical center for both physical and psychological treatment after his discovery, but he's reported to have made comments to local media regarding his disappearance.
According to a report from the Elkhabar newspaper, Omran described being held in a cellar of the home and being able to see his loved ones through the window, just a matter of feet away.
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However, he said he wasn't able to alert his family to his whereabouts.
He recalled feeling 'as if there was a compelling force inside me, preventing me'.
While Omran wasn't able to tell his family members where he was, it's thought his family's dog may have had some idea to his whereabouts as it had pined for him close to the home where he was being held.
The newspaper claimed the dog was later found poisoned.
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The 61-year-old man has been arrested in the wake of Omran's discovery, and is now set to go to trial.
Topics: Social Media, Crime, World News
Emily Brown