A 10-year-old boy narrowly escaped the clutches of his kidnappers on September 19 in New Orleans’ Algiers Point neighborhood.

In an effort to protect the boy’s identity, he and his mother shared the harrowing details of the escape with WVUE Fox 8 Live, under the condition of anonymity. 

While walking home from the school bus drop-off with his 6-year-old brother, the boy was grabbed at gunpoint by two masked men and tossed into a van. Thankfully, his little brother was able to break free and run home.

“My six-year-old runs inside screaming and hollering hysterically, saying ‘They took my brother,’” the mother said. “‘They took my brother!”

The two abductors then took the boy to a nearby abandoned home in the Algiers neighborhood, where he and another boy, whom he didn’t know, were asked to strip down to their underwear.

“They were going to try to take a photo of me, like I don’t know, but when they tried to do that, that was when one of them left,” the boy said. “The other one said, ‘I’ll be right back.’”

That’s when the two boys made their escape.

“They locked the door, so they made sure the door was locked, and that was when we tried to kick the door, and I kicked the door, and that’s when I had kicked the door down, and I had ran,” he said to the outlet.

In a nearby surveillance video, the boy’s father can be seen searching for his son, while the boy is seen running through the street in the background. Soon after, the two are seen embracing one another.

Additional details about the second boy weren’t shared. Although the community remains shaken, as no arrests have been made, the family is recovering.

“I just thank God for the strength I have for raising my child to be the strong person he was in that moment,” the boy’s mom said about the escape.

Police have asked anyone with further information to contact Crime Stoppers at 504- 822-1111.