Chinese sisters, abducted as teens, reunited with mother after 28 years
Police inquiries lead to meeting of Huang Ruixiang and Huang Ruixiu – sold as teenagers to two different families by their cousin – and their mother, 72
Two Chinese sisters abducted and sold as teenagers to other families 28 years ago were finally reunited with their elderly mother on Monday, mainland media reported.
The two women, Huang Ruixiu and Huang Ruixiang, were kidnapped by their cousin from their home in Shaanxi province in 1988 and sold to two different families in Kaifeng, Henan province, the news portal Hsw.cn reported.
They were aged 13 and 18, respectively, at the time.
“I begged him not to give my sister away, but he said someone had given him 3,000 yuan [about HK$3,400] and that’s that,” Huang said, adding that she was sold to a family in another village in Henan and they had been separated ever since.
In the summer of 2015, Huang Ruixiu was finally able to get in touch with her mother, Chen Jiaxiang, with the help of volunteers and police. By then the women’s father had already passed away, while her sister, Huang Ruixiang, still could not be tracked down.
This marked the start of a thorough police investigation that linked and matched fragments of information, such as household registrations, witness accounts and DNA samples, which eventually identified Ruixiang, who was living under the name of Huang Shunxiang in Henan.
The two sisters and their 72-year-old mother burst into tears during their reunion on Monday after being separated for so long.
Huang Ruixiang, 42, told reporters she was about to become a grandmother herself.
The report did not give further details about the sisters, their cousin, or whether their parents had tried to find them over the years.
