Ali Al-Khunaizi said he and his wife have not lost hope in being reunited with their son and that he roams the streets looking at the faces of children hoping he might see someone who looks like him.

“An hour after my wife received the baby for the first time for breast-feeding, a woman, aged around 37, entered the room. She was dark skinned and spoke to my wife for 15 minutes. She sounded friendly and told my wife that my son was dirty and that she needed to take him to the bathroom to clean,” said Al-Khunaizi, adding that he did not know about this as he was completing some paperwork elsewhere in the hospital.

The mother of the boy, who the family named Musa, said she cries every time she remembers how he was kidnapped.  “The woman disappeared and then the nurse came. I told her that a woman had taken him for cleaning and that she had still not returned. The nurse then told the hospital authorities and police, who launched a child search,” she said. “I prayed and hoped the child was still in the hospital; I still can’t forgive myself about what happened on that day,” she added.

“The hospital called me and asked me to come and sign some papers,” said Al-Khunaizi. “I thought that someone had died. I called my wife’s room and she was crying on the phone saying the baby had been taken. I blame the hospital for being neglectful; they should have taken the child’s footprints,” he added.