A five-year-old boy has been abandoned at his kindergarten in China after his father discovered he was not his biological son. The little boy, identified in local media reports by the pseudonym “Xiao Rui”, was abandoned at the kindergarten last week by his father after he dropped the child off for the day. When no one arrived to collect the boy that afternoon, staff contacted his parents and relatives, but none of them wanted him back. The boy’s teacher, surnamed Chen, said Xiao Rui was enrolled at the kindergarten in April this year, and that his father brought him to the kindergarten in Guangxi province, southern China, and picked him up at the end of each school day, the Jiangxi Morning Daily reported. The father, who was not named, told Chen he wouldn’t come for the boy because he had discovered that Xiao Rui was not his own son after getting a paternity test. The father then told Chen the boy was now the school’s problem. Chen later discovered that Xiao Rui’s father had packed a change of clothes and a mobile phone in the boy’s bag on the last day he dropped him off. ‘Not pornography’: hysteria in China over ‘sexy’ male pole dancers in water park The father continued to speak to the school on the phone after this but refused to collect the boy. When Chen went to the house where the boy had lived with his parents she found it empty. The whereabouts of the boy’s mother is also unknown. Chen called the local police for help and they contacted Xiao Rui’s grandfather and uncle, but both declined to take the little boy. According to a news report by Nanning Radio and Television Station, Xiao Rui’s mother was expected to pick up the boy this week. The news has triggered outrage in China with many people shocked by the behaviour of the boy’s parents. “How innocent the boy is! The mum was unbelievably irresponsible,” wrote one person on the original news post on Weibo. “Obviously, the father had talked with his wife and relatives and no one wanted the boy, which forced him to leave the kid in the kindergarten,” said another. Under Chinese law the father has not committed the crime of abandonment because the boy is not his biological son. However, if the biological mother refuses to raise him she would be committing a crime and could be jailed or placed under detention for up to five years, an unnamed lawyer told the Jiangxi Morning Daily . Dying with dignity: Shenzhen to allow China’s first ‘living wills’ end-of-life care Parents abandoning their children is not uncommon in China, but the number of orphans has declined in recent years. Two weeks ago, local police in Hainan province, southern China, investigated a mother who allegedly threw her newborn baby into a rubbish bin in front of a hotel. Last month, medical workers in Shanghai saved a newborn baby left in a public toilet. According to official data, there were about 193,000 orphans in China in 2020, 17 per cent lower than in 2019.