A MAJOR health update has been given on the condition of the Algerian man who was held captive for nearly 26 years in his own neighbourhood.
Omar Bin Omran was just 17 years old when he shockingly vanished from Djelfa in Algeria around 1998.
His family assumed their missing loved one had died during a civil war between Algeria’s government and various Islamist rebel groups.
Last Sunday, however, Omar was shockingly discovered inside his neighbour’s hey-covered cellar – just a few yards from his home – after a social media top-off prompted his family to storm the alleged captor’s residence.
With a heavy beard on his face, the victim, now 43, was found in a haystack inside what appeared to be a straw-covered hole in the ground.
Speaking to Agerian media, Omar’s family have now given a major health update on his condition.
They revealed the missing man is out of a “critical state” but is indeed “shocked and afraid” having spent 26 years of his life living in captivity.
Omar’s cousin Khaled Reggab told Echorouk News: “According to what I saw his health condition is good, it is not critical.
“His psychological state is shocked, and more than shocked, he is afraid, especially since he was detained, meaning he is not accustomed to being [outdoors].”
Khaled revealed that the victim is being given psychological care including therapy.
His (immediate) family members are said to be in a “catastrophic shock” following his discovery which came more than a decade after his mum died without knowing the truth about her son.
She had made several pleas on television to get more information on him, the Algerian newspaper L’ Expression reports.
Local reports, however, suggest that Omar was made aware of his mother’s death in 2013 while being held captive.
Omar was found on May 12 after one of the relatives of the alleged captor leaked his location following a family dispute.
Shocking footage showed Omar being helped out of the cellar where he had allegedly been hidden since 1998, at a property only yards from the family home where he grew up.
He was shown in pictures and videos wearing a sweater, with a beard and a desperate look on his face.
Local reports claimed the cellar was a covered well on a sheep farm and that Omar had been kept under haystacks.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office received a complaint via the regional department of National Gendarmerie in El Jadid by an anonymous man claiming to know Omar’s whereabouts.
Authorities confirmed they arrested the 61-year-old man suspected of keeping Omar prisoner for 26 years.
Public prosecutors in Djelfa said in a statement: “The Djelfa Attorney General’s Office informs the public that on May 12 at 8pm local time, it found victim Omar B, aged 45, in the case of his neighbour, B.A., aged 61.”
The suspect is understood to live alone and work as a civil servant.
The court official said: “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.
“The victim will receive medical and psychological treatment, and the suspect will be presented to the Public Prosecutor’s Office immediately after the completion of the investigation.”
Officials promised that the “perpetrator of this heinous crime” would be tried with “severity”.
After Omar was found, his family recalled how the missing teen’s dog had refused to leave the doorstep of their 61-year-old neighbour – long after he vanished while on his way to vocational school.
Local reports said the dog had recognised Omar’s smell and pined for its owner at the neighbour’s home – before the animal mysteriously vanished.
Omar’s alleged captor poisoned the dog and later left its body at the door of Omar’s family home, according to the Algerian newspaper El Khabar.
THERE were 7,420 kidnapping offences recorded by cops in England and Wales in the year 2022/23 - an increase from the previous year.
Here are some of the world’s longest kidnapping cases:
December 4, 1972: Steven Stayner, seven, was kidnapped on his way home from school in California and raised by his abductor Kenneth Parnell for seven years until Parnell abducted a second child – Timmy White – in 1980. Both boys escaped on March 1, 1980.
1974: Suzanne Marie Sevakis, five, from North Carolina, was raised by her abductor. The truth of her origins was discovered in 1990 when she died in an apparent hit-and-run.
February 13, 1976: Victoria Montenegro, the daughter of People’s Revolutionary Army dissidents, was kidnapped aged 13 days and raised by an army colonel while her parents were killed. Her true identity was established in 2000 following a DNA test.
May 19, 1977: Colleen Stan, 20, was kidnapped in California while hitchhiking. She was tortured and sexually abused for seven years until her abductor Cameron Hooker’s wife helped her escape in 1984.
1978: Doina Bumbea, 28, was possibly kidnapped to provide a wife to an American defector in North Korea. She died in 1997 from lung cancer.
August 29, 1984: Elisabeth Fritzl, 18, was held captive for 24 years in the basement of her family home in Austria by her father Josef who sexually abused her. The abuse led to the birth of seven children and one miscarriage. Elisabeth and her three captive children were released by Josef in 2008 when one child became seriously ill.
Other cases of children imprisoned by relatives include:
