A BOY reported to have survived the disaster is believed to have been abducted from hospital by suspected child sex traffickers.

Kristian Walker, 12, who is Swedish, was treated in a Thai hospital where he was taken as an outpatient by an unknown European man, who has not contacted his family.

Two Swedish police officers have arrived in Thailand, which is notorious as a centre for child trafficking and sex tourism, to help the boy’s family and Thai police to search for him.

“This case has been handed over to police and they are treating it as a suspected kidnapping,” a spokesman for the Swedish Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed yesterday.

Aid agencies in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand have reported that local children orphaned in the disaster have been snatched but this is the first case of a Western child being taken.

“Children left homeless by war or natural disaster become incredibly at risk of being abducted and trafficked for prostitution or domestic slavery,” said Christine Beddoe, director of the British group End Child Prostitution and Trafficking.

“We are particularly concerned that children are not being properly looked after.”

Kristian was on holiday with his mother, brother and sister in the resort of Khao Lak in southern Thailand when the waves hit. The family became separated and his mother, Madeleine, 45, is missing presumed dead.

Dan Walker, his father, heard the news of the earthquake at home in Stockholm and arranged to travel to Thailand to search for his children. He found his elder son David, 14, and daughter Anna, 7, at a hospital in Phuket, where they were being cared for by other Swedish tourists, but found no sign of Kristian.

Mr Walker has returned to Sweden with the two children leaving his father Daniel, a volunteer paramedic and former US Marine, in charge of the search for the missing boy.

Equipped with pictures of Kristian, Mr Walker Sr has visited every hospital, shelter and mortuary in the area and traced positive sightings of the boy to Tai Mueang hospital.

Two doctors and a nurse there identified Kristian from the family photographs and said he had been taken in for treatment to minor injuries on December 27.

They described the adult who accompanied him as a middle-aged European man with dark hair and a moustache, wearing a red shirt. Mr Walker, 78, has returned to the hospital four times to confirm the identification and search for his grandson.

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