A young child fighting for their life after being injured in the Nice attack has still not been identified and no-one has come to visit them, it has been reported.
French media have said the child, aged about ten, has received no visitors while lying in a serious condition in the intensive care unit of Nice’s Lenval children’s hospital.
It has left hospital staff unable to establish the youngster’s identity, and unsure as to whether relatives remain unaware of the child’s fate or are themselves among those killed when Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a lorry into crowds gathered on Nice’s Promenade des Anglais.
The plight of the child emerged as parents and relatives used social media to share images of children who are still missing following the attack, in the hope that they can be traced.
Twitter pages like “Recherche Nice”, set up in the aftermath of the attack, have shown pictures of children, as well as adults, and pleas for help finding them. One tweet shows the picture of a smiling primary school-age child, and the caption: “Urgent!!! We are looking for Kylan. Please distribute this appeal as widely as possible."
Another shows a little girl and the caption: “This little one was with her aunt but got lost in the crowd. Retweet to find her.”
Others have posted pictures of children who died in the attack. One, showing a little boy playing with a water pistol at the beach, is captioned: “Rest in peace little angel. Yannis was four and a half.”
Social media has, however, succeeded in reuniting one eight-month-old baby with his parents, who reportedly lost sight of the pram in the chaos of the attack.
The baby’s aunt Tiava Banner, appealed on Facebook for anyone to contact her if they knew of the baby’s whereabouts.
About an hour later, the baby was found alive and well after it was discovered a local resident had taken the baby into their home.
Lenval children’s hospital treated about 30 children aged from six months to 18 in the aftermath of the attack. Two died shortly after arriving at the hospital. It was reported on Saturday that 15 remain in hospital, with five, including the unidentified child, still in intensive care.
