Abducted man reunited with parents after 19 years of separation

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A 24-year-old Chinese man was reunited with his family 19 years after he was kidnapped, in an emotional gathering hosted by police officers in southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

Luo Zhide was born as Zhang Wenwen. On December 6, 1998, his grandfather allowed the then five-year-old to return home alone, however he never made it. On the road, he met a lady who changed his life after “kindly” offering him food that made him lose consciousness.

Human traffickers moved Zhang to southeast China’s Fujian Province, and sold him to a couple who became his adopted parents and changed his name to Luo Zhide.

But the boy never forgot his biological parents, and the memories of his life before he was kidnapped remained vivid. He embarked on a journey to find his birth parents.

He took a DNA test and entered the results in the database of the local police office in 2016. After a DNA matching process, he was able to connect with his biological parents, who had also registered in the same database.

During the family reunion, the young man hugged his parents tightly, and shed tears. However, he didn’t expect his grandfather would not be around. The old man had died thirteen years ago, with the guilt of having lost his grandson.

At the same event, six other parents reunited with their lost children. The same police officers have reportedly helped 52 kidnapped children return to their parents in 2017.

Besides Luo, six other parents were reunited with their lost children that day./ Photo via West China City Daily

Besides a DNA database, China’s Ministry of Public Security has launched a child abduction alert system called "Tuan Yuan (Reunion)". The information of 1,317 lost children was published and 1,274 of them were found in 2017 with a success retrieval rate of 96.3 percent, according to media outlet China Economic Net.

Street children in China. /VCG Photo

According to China’s Ministry of Civil Affair, there are about 1.5 million street children in China, many of whom are victims of child abduction.