The news from Santiago is “rather reassuring” about his state of health

We knew Santiago had been found. But we didn’t really know if this very premature baby was doing well. This would be the case, according to the king’s prosecutor of Mons-Tournai, in Belgium. “As I speak to you, the information is rather reassuring regarding his state of health,” declared Vincent Macq.

The child was kidnapped on October 21 from a maternity ward in Paris where he had been cared for since his birth. His parents were the subject of intense research. On Friday, they were arrested in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, where they were living with their child. An arrest which would have taken place “smoothly”, insisted the prosecutor.

Two other children and the grandmother

During the arrest, in a hotel in Amsterdam, three adults were present: little Santiago’s parents and his grandmother, he said. Two other children were also there: “Santiago’s sister very likely” and another who remains to be identified. “The parents were deprived of their liberty,” he added.

The baby was taken Monday evening by his parents from the neonatology department of a hospital in Aulnay-sous-Bois, near Paris. The newborn, then only 17 days old, benefited from constant care in an incubator, having been born eight weeks early. A few hours after the parents fled the maternity ward with the child in a shopping bag, the French authorities issued a kidnapping alert. It was lifted on Tuesday evening when the infant’s parents were suspected of having gone to Belgium.

The reasons for the kidnapping remain to be clarified, according to the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office, but it is likely that the parents aged 23 and 25 feared losing custody of their child and that he would be placed in care. On the day of the incident, they had an interview with the hospital teams.

The Dutch police are in charge of the case. Three people, including a minor, have already been indicted in this case.