Seven- year – old missing Japanese boy found alive in mountains having been left in forest by parents for almost a week.

A seven-years-old boy -  went missing for nearly a week in the mountains of northern Japan has been found alive.

The young boy was found by defence personnel curled up on a mattress in a building in a military drill area four miles from where he was left in the town of Shikabe at around 7.50am.

The boy introduced himself at Yamato Tanooka and told the soldiers he was hungry and thirsty, before he was given rice balls and bread.

Although he had no visible injuries, the boy, who also reportedly told officers he had been in the same place for several days, was flown by helicopter to hospital in the city of Hakodate where he is undergoing tests.

“A Self-Defence Force official who was on a drill found a boy whose age appeared to be seven,” a police spokesman told AFP.

“There was no conspicuous external injury, and the boy introduced himself as Yamato Tanooka.”
Manabu Takehara, a Self-Defence Force spokesman, added: “He looked in good health, but he was sent to hospital by medical helicopter.”

Shortly after the boy was found his father apologized for leaving him behind.
"My excessive act forced my son to have a painful time," Yamato Tanooka's father told reporters outside the hospital where his son was being treated.

"I deeply apologise to people at his school, people in the rescue operation, and everybody for causing them trouble," he added, thanking the rescuers.

Yamato Tanooka was left in a forest on Hokkaido, Japan's most northerly main island, on May 28 by his parents as punishment for throwing stones at cars and other people during a family day out.
The boy's parents initially claimed that he had wandered off while they were gathering mountain vegetables.

The boy's father, Takayuki Tanooka, later admitted to misleading police and said he and his wife stopped their car on a mountain road, ordered Yamato out as punishment and drove off. They stopped the vehicle less then half a mile away and walked back to where they had left the boy, but he had disappeared.

Mr Tanooka claimed he was only gone for five minutes. In an interview with TV Asahi, he added that he did not dare tell the truth when he asked the police to begin a search for his son.

In a subsequent interview with local reporters, he said, "We have done an unforgivable thing to our child and we have caused a lot of trouble for everyone.
"I just hope he is safe".

More than 200 rescue workers, mounted police and local civilians have been scouring the forests for the last six days, with the military also joining the search.

Temperatures have dropped to just six degrees at night and the area has experienced heavy rain over the last few days, with hopes that the boy - last seen wearing only a T-shirt and jeans - would be found alive fading.
An additional concern was the possibility that the boy had encountered one of the region's Ussuri brown bears.
The bears can be extremely aggressive and three men were killed in bear attacks in northern Japan in May. The men were attacked in separate incidents in Akita Prefecture while they were picking wild bamboo shoots. The bodies of all of the men had extensive bite and scratch marks.

An adult Ussuri brown bear can grow up to 1,200 lbs and there are an estimated 3,000 such bears on Hokkaido.
Japan has been transfixed with the story since it broke, with people taking to social media to criticize the boy's parents for taking such extreme measures to discipline him.