Boy abandoned in Japanese forest as punishment found alive

(Image credit: Twitter.com/CNN)

last updated 3 June 2016

On Friday morning, a Japanese soldier conducting a drill came across Yamato Tanooka, the 7-year-old missing in the woods for nearly a week after his parents left him behind as punishment for throwing rocks.

Japanese media reports he was found in relatively good health, has been given food and water, and was taken to a hospital. The NHK network says Tanooka identified himself to the soldier at a base just a few miles from where he was last seen. His parents originally said they were in a Hokkaido forest on Saturday foraging for vegetables when their son wandered off, but later admitted they briefly left him as a form of punishment, and when they returned he was gone.

Tanooka was wearing casual clothes, BBC News reports, and likely did not have any food or water with him. The area is home to brown bears, and search teams were unable to find any signs of the boy before Friday. Police have said Tanooka's parents could face charges for negligence.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.