Mainland Chinese family of ‘stateless’ boy ‘fit and willing to take him in’, report claims

Questions resurfaced this morning about the family situation of a 12-year-old boy who had lived in Hong Kong illegally for nine years after a newspaper report refuted claims made by his grandmother that they were unfit and unwilling to receive him.

The whereabouts of the boy, Siu Yau-wai, and his grandmother Chow Siu-shuen were unknown this morning after he was voluntarily deported and taken back to mainland China last night.

Chow last month claimed that Yau-wai’s parents were unwilling to take care of the boy because his father had lost a leg in an industrial accident and his mother earlier had breast cancer.

But Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao reported today that the mainland Public Security Bureau had found Yau-wai’s parents and that they were willing to receive him. It also said the father did not experience an industrial accident or lose his leg and and that the couple had another elder son.

The newspaper also said the two-way permit on which Yau-wai had used to come to Hong Kong was in his own name, contrary to his grandmother's claims that it was another child's.

However, “family members” who were supposed to be waiting for Yau-wai on the other side of the border did not show up when they arrived in Shenzhen last night.