HANOI, Aug 22, 2024 (AFP) - A six-year-old boy missing for four days was found alive in a forest in a mountainous part of northern Vietnam, police said Thursday.

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

Police in Lam Giang commune launched a search for the boy and "even dried up a pond as they were afraid he had fallen," an officer, who declined to give his name, told AFP.

Over the past four days, more than 200 people joined a search for the boy, according to state media.

He was finally found on Wednesday, the police official said.

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

State media reported that a man had heard crying and discovered the exhausted boy covered in mud, sitting in a cassava bush in the forest.
Lam's mother, Ly Thi Phai, told the VietnamNet news site of her relief.
"I was so happy that my child had returned alive," she said.

"I cried because he looked thinner and weaker than before he disappeared."

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.