Egyptian family stunned after father 'returns from dead'

A picture showing Mohammad el-Gammal when he was found alive after he went missing and his family thought he died. (Youm 7 newspaper)

Mohammad el-Gammal after he was found alive. (Youm 7 newspaper)

• Gammal's family thought they had held his funeral four months ago
• He had suffered from mental illness and would often disappear for up to a month at a time

CAIRO: The family of an Egyptian man who they thought had died and been buried have been left stunned after he appeared to come back from the dead.
Mohammed El-Gammal, who is in his 40s, was found wandering out of a cemetery in the village of Kafr Al-Hosar in the Sharqiyah region north of Cairo.
However, his family thought they had held his funeral four months ago after they incorrectly identified another corpse as being El-Gammal.
El-Gammal, who had worked as a teacher and is married with children, had suffered from mental illness and would often disappear for up to a month at a time, a village resident told Youm 7 news website.
But in January he went missing and never returned. His family kept searching for him until they received a call from a relative who worked at a local hospital.
The relative told them that an unidentified dead body had arrived at the hospital and the family went to see if it was El-Gammal.
They all believed the corpse was his apart from one of his sisters.
The report said a DNA sample was taken from the body but the result was never received by the family and the funeral took place on March 21.
Four months later, the real El-Gammal was found alive by youths over the weekend and taken to the nearest police station.