As committed to record by good ol’ Gary “U.S.” Peach:
Abducted Latvia Boy Found After 16 Years
By GARY PEACH – 7 hours ago
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Police have found a 16-year-old boy who was kidnapped as a baby and he soon could be reunited with his mother, authorities said Wednesday.
The discovery came when the woman who had raised him was arrested in a separate case and questions arose about his identity, police spokeswoman Inguna Dunda said.
The boy had no birth certificate or personal ID code — obligatory in Latvia — which prompted investigators to reopen the 1992 kidnapping case that was closed six years ago because of a lack of leads.
The boy’s mother had gone shopping and left her 1 1/2 month-old child in a baby carriage outside a store, Dunda said. When she came out, the child and carriage had disappeared.
A DNA test confirmed the teenager was the kidnapped baby.
The woman who raised the boy denied abducting him and told police that her husband, who died several years ago, had brought the boy home claiming he came from the Russian region of Dagestan, Dunda said.
Authorities placed the boy in a foster family and pending a custody hearing that will determine if he can live with his biological mother, who also lives in Daugavpils, Latvia’s second-largest city located near the border with Belarus.
The Ministry for Children and Family Affairs said the court would weigh all factors — including the teenage boy’s wishes — in deciding where he should live until he turns 18.
Dunda said the boy was his real mother’s only child. He has been removed from school and is receiving psychological help, police said.
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Although Peach filed the story from Riga, it is written in a way that suggests that the boy was found living in Daugavpils, and that the biological mother is also from Daugavpils. If so, it is entirely likely that they may have crossed paths on the street a few times. One can imagine the agony that the birth mother must have gone through, seeing a face in the crowd and wondering if that could be her little boy.
One does not even know if this can be called a “happy ending.” For the boy, it is likely he will be separated from the only “mother” he has ever really known. His life is thus turned radically upside down. With the ethnic mix in Daugavpils being what it is, it may be quite a shock that he grew up believing he was a Caucasian and then learning he is really a Balt or a Slav.
