Woman dies without realising abducted son in same anti-human trafficking WeChat group after 26-year search
- The two had been connected by a group that fights human trafficking in China
- But a mistaken blood test and a birthmark confusion convinced the two they were not related
Five years after her death, police in southern China announced last Monday that a woman who had spent 26 years searching for her abducted son was a DNA match with a 35-year-old man who happened to be a WeChat contact.
Yang’s story recently re-emerged in the mainland Chinese media, prompting police to do another DNA test, which they said confirmed that Xu was Yang’s son.
“Destiny was toying with us. We were running towards each other but then brushed past each other. Your baby was right in front of you. I am so sorry,” Xu wrote on Douyin.
“I hate that the blood testing technology was immature 12 years ago. I hate that, six years ago, you said I did not match the characteristics of your child,” he said.
The 35-year-old Xu was abducted in Guangdong province in southern China when he was four years old. He lived with his adopted family in Huizhou, Guangdong, and started looking for his biological family in 2010.
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Yang, from Taizhou, in Zhejiang province in eastern China, had travelled across the country searching for Xu after he was taken away by a stranger in 1991.
Xu remained Yang’s WeChat friend after they were first connected in 2016 and was the first person to send his condolences to her daughter – his sister – in January 2017 after Yang died.
On Monday, a reunion ceremony was held when Xu returned to Taizhou to meet his other family members and visit Yang’s grave.
