Belgian police have found the car of a French couple who took their baby from a hospital near Charleroi. Police are looking for the parents because the premature child needs urgent medical care.
Belgian authorities called on Wednesday morning to look out for the couple’s car. French police suspected that the parents had fled to Belgium with the newborn baby and had therefore asked for help from their Belgian colleagues.
The appeal was distributed in Belgium, among other things, via information boards above the highway. The description of the parents and the baby was also shared. It concerns a 23-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman. The baby has blond hair and was wearing velvet white pyjamas.
The baby was just 17 days old when his parents took him from the hospital in France on Monday between 11 and 11:30 p.m.
Baby possibly carried from hospital in bag
The child was born two months prematurely on October 5, writes the French news outlet France 3 Régions . He was admitted to the neonatology department. The parents left the hospital on Monday evening with a bag. This raises the suspicion that they took the baby with them in the bag.
A nurse saw shortly afterwards that the baby had disappeared from the incubator and immediately called the police. Le Monde, among others , writes that the baby has a life expectancy of twelve hours if he does not receive help.
On Tuesday morning, French police arrested five people between the ages of 16 and 29, Le Monde reports . They are said to be good acquaintances of the parents.
