The body of a four-year-old child was found in the East Kalimantan capital of Samarinda on Sunday, two weeks after he was last seen at a daycare.
Yusuf Ghazali was reported missing from his day care on Nov. 22, with his parents alleging that he disappeared when his carer left the room for five minutes.
On Sunday, a headless corpse of a small child was found in a nearby canal. Yusuf’s parents have positively identified the body as belonging to their child, but the police say they’re carrying out a DNA test to put the identification beyond any doubt.
Though no cause of death has been officially determined, police suspect that during the short time Yusuf was unattended, he wandered off and fell into the canal some 30 meters from the daycare.
When he was found, his body — which was severely damaged — had been carried 4.5 kilometers downstream.
“There are no CCTV cameras at the location. It’s a quiet area, and the people next door [from the daycare] barely ever come out of the house,” Samarinda Police Crime Investigation Unit Head Damus Asa told Detik.
Bambang, Yusuf’s father, says he is going to sue the daycare for negligence despite the lack of an official cause of death by the police thus far.
“I do not accept, it’s because of the lack of service and supervision from the daycare that my son went missing,” he said.
