Chinese family reunited with kidnapped son after 32 years
- Family’s long quest to find their boy ends with tearful reunion that brings to close one of the country’s most notorious missing child cases
- Mao Yin went missing in the northwestern city of Xian in 1988 but his parents never gave up their quest to find him
A man who was kidnapped as a child has finally been reunited with his parents after 32 years, bringing to an end one of China’s most notorious abduction cases.
Mao Yin was two when he disappeared in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province, in 1988 and was sold to another family who raised him as their own son.
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Mao, who was renamed Gu Ningning by his adoptive parents, was reunited with his mother and father – Li Jingzhi and Mao Zhenjing – on Monday at a press conference organised by the police and shown live on the state broadcaster CCTV.
Mao, who now runs a home decoration business, was tracked down in early May by Xian police who used facial recognition technology to analyse old photos of the boy. His identity was later confirmed using DNA testing.
When the police informed Li on Mother’s Day that her son has been found, she wept and said, “This is the best gift I have ever got on Mother’s Day”, according to the CCTV report.
At the press conference, the couple broke down in tears while hugging their son. Holding her son’s hands, Li said: “I don’t want to be separated from him any more”, and the son replied that he would come and live with his biological parents soon.
