Fears grow for boy, 12, 'seized by traffickers'

Concern was mounting today for the safety of a 12-year-old Swedish survivor believed to have been abducted from a Thai hospital by child sex traffickers.

Kristian Walker was treated at a hospital three miles outside the beach resort of Khao Lak. He was taken there as an outpatient by an unknown European man, who has not contacted his family.

"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 today. Two Swedish policemen have been sent to Bangkok to investigate the case.

A doctor at the hospital described the adult who accompanied him as a middle-aged European man with dark hair and a moustache. The boy's father is flying from Stockholm to Thailand to help the search.