Mum’s tears of joy as she hugs child... 32 years after abduction
A MOTHER who has spent the last 32 years searching for her son after he was abducted as a toddler wept tears of joy as they were finally reunited this week.
Li Jingzhi had quit her job in China so she could look for Mao Yin full-time. She was finally told he had been found on the country’s Mother’s Day, May 10.
She said: “It is the best gift I have ever had.” Mao, now 34, was snatched in 1988 in the city of Xi’an in the Shaanxi province as he walked home from nursery with his father. His dad, Mao Zhenjing, had stopped at the entrance of a hotel after Mao Yin asked for a drink of water.
As his father briefly turned his back the toddler was taken.
On Monday all three members of the family were overcome as they embraced each other in front of TV cameras.
Mao Yin, who has been renamed Gu Ningning and runs a home decoration business, says he now plans to get to know his mum and dad.
His mother had pounded streets across 10 Chinese provinces and sent out more than 100,000 flyers while making appeals on TV and following up 300 leads in her bid to find him.
She even helped 29 other families find their missing children after volunteering for the group Baby Come Back Home.
Her son was discovered when police received a tip-off that a man had taken a child from Shaanxi to Sichuan province more then 600 miles away in the late 1980s.
It emerged Mao was sold to a childless couple for around 6,000 yuan, equivalent to £640 today. Police compared a computer-generated image of Mao with photos in the national database to find a potential match, using face recognition technology.
A DNA test was carried out to see if he was related to Mao Zhenjing and Li Jingzhi, and his identity was confirmed. Li said: “I would like to thank the tens of thousands of people who helped us.
“I can’t believe that after helping 29 missing children find their families, I am able to find my own son.”
The case has given fresh hope to the parents of Britain’s Madeleine McCann, who disappeared during a family holiday in 2007.
Kate and Gerry McCann were said to be “buoyed up” by the news and wished Mao’s family “all the best”.