A man who had been missing for 26 years was found kidnapped next door

Aged 45, the man has been missing since 1998. He was found abducted on Tuesday 14 May in his neighbor’s house in central Algeria.

A 45-year-old Algerian man who had been missing for 26 years was found abducted next door to his home in a village in central Algeria, authorities announced Tuesday, May 14. He mysteriously disappeared without a trace in 1998 and was found next door.

The house was searched by gendarmes following a denunciation published on social networks, the prosecutor’s office of Djelfa governorate, 300 km from Algiers, where these incredible events took place, said in a press release.

The neighbor lived as if nothing had happened

According to local media, the man was locked up in his neighbor’s cattle shed in the village of El-Guédid.

Relatives quoted by the media said that during her captivity, she could see and hear her family members through an opening in the enclosure “but was unable to scream or run because of the spell cast on her by her captor.”

The suspect, a 61-year-old local municipal employee who lived as if nothing had happened all these years, has been arrested and his trial will continue, the prosecution said.