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The family members of a child dramatically rescued while dangling from a balcony in Paris have expressed their immense gratitude to the Malian man who saved him. "He's truly a hero," the boy's grandmother said of migrant Mamoudou Gassama, who climbed four floors to pull the child to safety.

"My God, I was very shocked. My grandson, my grandson, save him!" she said, while describing how she felt watching the video of her grandson hanging off the balcony.

 

"Thankfully he [Mr Gassama] knew how to climb, because there were a lot of people below but he didn't just fold his arms. He raced up to the fourth floor. That was truly incredible. He was very brave," she said.

 

President Emmanuel Macron personally thanked him, gave him a medal for courage and said he would also be offered a role in the fire service.

 

Similarly, according to report the father of the child was out playing Pokemon Go game when the incident happened.

 

In an interview with CNN-affiliate BFM TV Monday, French prosecutor Francois Molins said the child's father had gone out shopping and then begun to play Pokemon Go once he left the shop.

 

According to Molins, the father, who now faces up to two years in prison for abandoning his parental responsibilities, is devastated by the consequences of his actions.

 

The four-year-old was being looked after by his father in Paris while his mother was living on Reunion Island, Molins said.

 

The boy left Réunion, where his mother and grandmother live, about three weeks ago and moved to Paris to join his father, who works in the city. His mother and the couple's second child were due to join them in June.

 

The father lived on the sixth-floor of the building in northern Paris, the building's concierge told BFMTV.

 

The boy had already fallen two storeys before somehow managing to grab hold of the fourth-floor balcony, according to this version of events.

 

When asked by a resident in the neighbouring fourth-floor flat where he lived, he is reported to have pointed upwards.

 

His mother told Antenne Réunion that the boy's father was not used to looking after him on his own and had left him alone before.

 

"I can't justify what my husband did. People will say it could have happened to anyone and it has happened to other people. My son was just lucky," she said.

 

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