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Aussie Toddler Anthony 'AJ' Elfalak Has Been Found Alive

Aussie Toddler Anthony 'AJ' Elfalak Has Been Found Alive

Aj disappeared last Friday and his family thought he had been snatched by someone.

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

Australian toddler Anthony 'AJ' Elfalak has been found alive and safe after vanishing last week.

The three-year-old disappeared without a trace on Friday (September 3) just before midday, sparking a massive search and rescue mission.

More than 100 emergency service personnel, volunteers and family members have been combing through the family's large property in Putty, in the NSW Upper Hunter region.

Channel 9 says he was discovered in a creek several kilometres from his home.

There were grave concerns for the welfare of the toddler, who has autism and is non-verbal, and his family thought he had been snatched.

AJ disappeared last Friday and his family thought he had been snatched by someone.

His father was overcome with emotion when the good news arrived.

"Four days I've been running in the bush day and night looking for AJ. They found him, the police found him, they found him! He's alive. That's the power of prayer, that's the power of God," Anthony said.

The toddler has been taken to John Hunter Hospital to be treated and assessed.

One thing that will likely leave investigators perplexed is the missing CCTV footage from when AJ vanished.

Alan Hashem.
Channel 7

The boy's godfather, Alan Hashem retrieved the security cameras when emergency services had arrived to look for AJ and when he looked for any clues on the footage he was shocked.

"There's one key factor and this probably the first time I actually mentioned this, I installed cameras on that post right there.

"There's footage missing, unexplained. (We have footage from) days before, days after, but not during the time.

"You know what's more alarming? We installed it so high you can't tamper with it and we had two mechanisms of storage, cloud storage and physical storage and there's no data in that time slot.

"We provided the user name and password to the police, we provided them the actual original memory card. There's a lot of explaining to do."

Featured Image Credit: Channel 7

Topics: Australia