A touching video has emerged of two elderly parents being reunited with their son 38 years after he was abducted from a remote village in northwestern Chinese province Shaanxi.
70-year-old Su Bingde and his wife broke down into tears when they finally got to embrace their long-lost son, nicknamed Jin Shui, who was kidnapped at the age of two in 1982.
Video shows the family crying tears of joy as they hug each other after police tracked down the son with the help of a national DNA database.
Mr Su had left home a day before his son disappeared to visit a relative without locking the house thinking he would return by the night as his wife and two children stayed home. He didn’t return as his wife, Huang Renxiu, tucked the children into bed.
In the wee hours of May 12, 1982, she was shocked to find that her two-year-old son Jin Shui had disappeared.
The family began a decade-long quest to look for their son with Mr Su going to other towns and cities in the hope to find any clue about son’s abduction. The poor father travelled mostly on foot to save money and sometimes spent hours walking non-stop.
The local police were also unable to solve the case due to the remote location and limited information.
Mr Su said that he had spent the past few years saving money for his funeral. “I don’t want to trouble the family. I’ve sorted it out myself. My one last wish is to see my son Jin Shui once again,” he told reporters in an interview earlier this year.
The family’s prayers were finally answered when they were informed by the police about the whereabouts of their son who was located after his DNA samples matched with those of his parents in a national database.
He is now known by the name Li Guolin. Mr Li now has a family of his own with a wife and two sons. They live in Hebei province, 1,104 kilometres (686 miles) away from his birth parents.
On September 17, the family finally met again after nearly four decades as they hugged one another and burst into tears.
“I had waited for this day for 38 years. I didn’t think I would also meet my grandsons,” the elated father said.
