In a radio interview last week with the Voice of America, Abdulle said she was divorced from her husband, who lives in Santa Clara with their son and two of his siblings.

'They were even told that I was dead, but they recently found out that I was alive,' she told the broadcaster.

The boy told investigators he was trying to go to Africa to find his mother, Ubah Mohamed Abdulle, who is living in a refugee camp in Ethiopia.