Cellar Captive: Algerian Man Survives 26 Years in Confinement

Omar bin Omran

An Algerian guy discovered alive in a cellar 26 years later

Omar bin Omran, an Algerian who went missing approximately 26 years ago, was discovered alive in his neighbor's cellar.

Omran went missing in the late 1990s, during Algeria's civil conflict, when he was just a teenager living in Djelfa.

Omran, who is 45 years old, was found 200 meters away from his childhood home.

Authorities declared that a 61-year-old man they believed to be holding him captive had been taken into custody.

The battle between Islamist organizations and the Algerian government lasted ten years before Omran vanished.

His family feared he had been one of the 20,000 people kidnapped or the estimated 200,000 slain during the upheaval.

However, on May 12, he was discovered concealed beneath haystacks in a sheepfold, per reports.

According to a court official, the public prosecutor's office received a complaint against an unidentified individual alleging that Mr. Bin Omran was inside a sheepfold at a neighbor's residence.

The court representative stated: “Following this report, the general prosecutor ordered the national gendarmerie to open an in-depth investigation and officers went to the house in question.

“On 12 May at 8 pm local time, [they) found victim Omar bin Omran, aged 45, in the cellar of his neighbour, BA, aged 61.”

The court official stated that the defendant allegedly tried to leave the scene but was apprehended and placed under custody.

Omran was receiving medical and psychological care, according to the ministry, and the inquiry was still ongoing.

A representative referred to the offense as “heinous.”

According to local media, Omran admitted to his captors that he had occasionally seen his family from behind bars but that he had been unable to cry out for assistance “because of a spell that his captor had cast on him.”

In 2013, his mother passed away.