The 7-year-old Japanese boy who went missing almost a week ago in a dense forest in the northern island of Hokkaido, was found alive and healthy on Friday morning.
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In an interview with TV Asahi after the child was found, his father Takayuki Tanooka revealed that he had “apologised to Yamato”.
Police said the parents said they made the boy get out of the vehicle as “discipline”, after changing their earlier story that he disappeared while picking wild vegetables. When they returned several minutes later, he had vanished.
Yamato Tanooka, 7, was found inside a military barracks for the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) near Shikabe in northern Hokkaido, about two-and-a-half miles from where his parents left him for misbehaving six nights earlier, reports said. Outside of the medical facility, the father of the boy apologized.
“My excessive act forced my son to have a painful time”, his father Takayuki Tanooka said in an interview outside Hakodate hospital.
Police said they are considering whether the parents should be charged with child abandonment.
The boy’s father said he and his wife put the boy out of their vehicle last Saturday on the main island of Hokkaido in a forest, known to have bears, to teach him a lesson because he had misbehaved, throwing rocks at cars and people.
Yamato said he had walked through the mountains until he found the unlocked building. “I am so sorry for causing trouble for so many people”.
“We have raised him with love all along”.
“A Self-Defence Force official who was on a drill found a boy whose age appeared to be seven”, said Tomohito Tamura, spokesman for police in northern Hokkaido island. The soldiers gave him rice balls and bread when he said he was hungry and thirsty. Yamato was immediately taken to a hospital in helicopter, where he was placed on an intravenous drip as he had symptoms of mild dehydration and hypothermia. Apparently, he had realized that he had “gone too far”.
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As Camila wrote this week for the Two-Way, “His parents initially said he disappeared as the family was gathering food in the forest, but later admitted leaving him alone intentionally, as a punishment”.
