A SIX-YEAR-OLD boy who had been missing for four days was found alive in a deep forest in a mountainous region of northern Vietnam.

The child was reported missing on Saturday after he failed to return home with his nine siblings from a celebration at a relative’s house in Yen Bai province.

Local reports named the child as Dang Tien Lam and said he had wandered into the hills and got lost.

The BBC, citing local Vietnamese media, said he was found yesterday by local farmers who heard a child’s cry while they were working in a cinnamon field.

Six-year-old boy found in Vietnam forest after five days https://t.co/2SHdaqL8Ec

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One of the farmers discovered Lam covered in mud and sitting in a cassava bush in the forest around 6 kilometres from where he had gone missing.

Over the past four days, more than 200 people joined a search for Lam.

“We were told that the boy was tired. They gave him things to eat and checked his health. He is ok now,” a police official told the AFP news agency.

Lam’s mother, Ly Thi Phai, told the VietnamNet news site that she was “so happy that my child had returned alive”.

“I cried because he looked thinner and weaker than before he disappeared,” she added.

According to state media, the boy said he had become lost in the forest and the more he walked, the more disorientated he became.

To survive, he said he drank water from a stream and picked leaves and wild fruits he recognised.

-With additional reporting from - © AFP 2024