Heart-broken mother is reunited with her newborn son after he was stolen from her hospital ward and sold to another family 800 miles away
- The boy was abducted 46 hours after birth by a suspected trafficker in China
- He was immediately sold to a couple who had trouble conceiving for £5,574
- Police worked for 76 hours non-stop to find the newborn and drive him home
- Footage shows his mother breaking down in tears while meeting the boy again
A Chinese couple has been reunited with their newborn son after he was abducted from her mother's hospital ward and sold to another family 800 miles away.
Police footage shows the mother breaking down in tears when she met her baby six days after he was stolen from her bedside in Yunnan province in southern China.
The crying woman is seen holding her child tightly and kissing him when her husband tried to console her.
Police footage shows the mother breaking down in tears when she met her baby six days after he was stolen from her bedside at People's Hospital in Yunnan's Weixi County, southern China
The crying woman is seen kissing her baby when her husband tries to console her on July 11
The case was revealed on Sunday by the police in Yunnan.
According to a social media post, the baby was abducted on July 5 from the People's Hospital in Yunnan's Weixi County. He had just been born for 46 hours.
After the police were alerted, they immediately formed a team to investigate the case.
The devastated mother told the police that the child was stolen in the wee hours from her ward when she was sleeping.
She said: 'My child had been born for just 46 hours and he was stolen. I had breastfed him at around 2am, and when I woke up at 3 o'clock, he disappeared.'
While reviewing surveillance footage, officers saw a suspicious person (left, circled) leaving the hospital in a hurry while carrying a baby at around 2:25am on July 5. Police worked for 76 hours non-stop to find the newborn (right), who had been driven to a home 800 miles away
While reviewing surveillance footage, officers saw a suspicious person leaving the hospital in a hurry while carrying a baby at around 2:25am.
The police checked through the information of more than 2,000 vehicles thought to be related to the case and narrowed down their target to an unlicensed black Jeep.
After using the data from the country's mass surveillance system, the police found out that the vehicle belonged to a man, Li.
The suspect and his car frequently appeared near the hospital before the incident, but suddenly travelled to a nearby city, called Lijiang, afterwards.
The police caught Li at a hotel in Lijiang in the wee hours of July 7. The suspect claimed to have already sold the baby to a man, known as Luo, who lives in another province more than 800 miles away.
Officers decided to drive to the buyer's home immediately to rescue the baby.
When police arrived at the buyers' home, the boy's 'mother' was holding him in the sitting room
The police caught the suspected human trafficker at a hotel in Lijiang in the wee hours of July 7
When they arrived at the county of Ebian in Sichuan province about 48 hours later, Luo's wife, Wang, was holding the boy in their bedroom.
Footage released by the Missing Children Alert Platform of China's Ministry of Public Security shows police questioning Wang before taking the child away.
It is alleged that Luo and Wang had trouble conceiving. They were said to have bought the boy for 50,000 yuan (£5,574) after being introduced to Li by a relative.
The police then drove the baby back to Yunnan and arranged him to be reunited with his parents on July 11.
The baby's father thanked police after they handed him his son.
He said: 'If it weren't for the help from police officers, I might not be able to meet my son again for the rest of my life.'
The suspected trafficker, Zhang, and the baby's buyers, Luo and Wang, are under further police investigation.
Why is child abduction a serious problem in China?
Around 200,000 boys and girls are reported to be missing every year in China
Child abduction is a serious problem in China, especially in rural areas.
One major cause is that the Chinese families prefer sons to daughters, resulting in them buying baby boys.
In addition, a severe gender gap - a result of four decades of one-child policy - has made it hard for Chinese men to find wives. Therefore, teenager girls are sometimes kidnapped and sold as child brides.
Child abduction remains a sensitive topic to the Chinese authorities. No official figures have been released on how many children are kidnapped in China every year.
However according to a 2013 report on China Nation Radio, around 200,000 boys and girls are estimated to be missing every year. Among them, only 200, or 0.1 per cent, would be able to find their parents at some point of their lives.
A survey shows that around 64 per cent of the kidnapped children in China are boys
But other recent reports have estimated that the estimated number could fall anywhere between 20,000 and 200,000.
Baobeihuijia, a website specialised in connecting families with their missing members, has conducted a survey on the kidnapped children in China based on 8,861 cases listed on their website.
The survey shows that around 64 per cent of the kidnapped children are boys and more than 75 per cent of the kidnapped children are under the age of six.
However, among those who are abducted over the age of 13, there are more girls than boys.
The survey also claims that children under the age of four are most likely to be abducted in China.
