A rapidly-shared appeal on social media has helped one young mother locate her son less than 24-hours after he was allegedly kidnapped by his father.
Two-year-old Tomás was snatched from his mother’s arms as she carried him through a car park in Viana do Castelo on Saturday afternoon.
The desperate woman immediately launched an appeal via Facebook and got in touch with police.
Recently returned from France where she had lived with her son’s father, Sara Fernandes thought (quite rightly) that her former partner would be on the way to Paris.
She published the number plate and description of the car he was driving and waited for the appeal to be shared.
Within hours, it had done the rounds of thousands of users as police in Portugal and France also exchanged information and images.
Less than a day after he had been taken, little Tomás was located and taken to an institution pending a decision by French authorities.
For 30-year-old Sara the agony wasn’t over. According to Geice radio station she travelled to France to be reunited with her son on Monday, but was not allowed to see him.
“It seems the French authorities still have some doubts”, she told the station, “despite the fact that Portuguese courts have given me custody of my son”.
As little Tomás faced the prospect of a second night in a French institution, Geice radio station reported that his father had filed for the boy’s custody in France.
