Everyone wants to find him. Marciano, a seven-year-old autistic boy, has been missing since Sunday in Niort (Deux-Sèvres). Significant resources were deployed to try to find him, while a sandal, which the family recognized as belonging to the child, was found on a bank of the Sèvre Niortaise.
Marciano N., dressed in gray jogging, disappeared Sunday afternoon in the Tour Chabot district. “It is a disturbing search for disappearance. We have no element giving rise to fear of a kidnapping, but we are checking, in particular on the images” of video surveillance, explained Julien Wattebled, public prosecutor in Niort.
Some 70 police and gendarmes were deployed to find the child, with the help of firefighters, who mobilized boats and divers. Investigators also called in dog teams, drones and a helicopter equipped with a thermal camera. According to our information, a dog marked at the edge of the stream. Residents of the neighborhood also mobilized to search for the boy.
“A child who does not express himself”
According to the daily The Western Mail, the boy would have escaped the vigilance of a friend of the family who kept him with his two brothers aged four and five, while the mother was away. The two youngest children would have returned to the apartment later, without their older brother. Autistic, Marciano “is a child who does not express himself and who hides”, specified the prosecutor.
“We are concentrating our efforts on the Sèvre but we are also looking in town. (…) We went around the cellars, to see if it was not hidden or not lost, we check all the video protection images, ”added Julien Wattebled.
The police had issued a call for witnesses on Tuesday to try to find the young boy. Relief should receive Thursday the reinforcement of the Nautical Brigade of La Rochelle, with four additional divers and a sounder.