Chinese taxi driver finally reunited with missing daughter after 24-year search

A taxi driver from southwest China who spent 24 years searching for his missing daughter

will finally be reunited with her on Tuesday after she responded to his appeal for information.Wang Mingqing and his wife Liu Chengying briefly took their eyes off their daughter Qifeng, who wandered off while they were busy running their fruit stall in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, in January 1994.

The girl’s father told the West China Daily: “It was only five minutes and then my daughter was gone.”

The couple abandoned their stall to search for their daughter, but for years their efforts appeared to be in vain.

Although the couple went on to have a second child, they never gave up looking for the girl.

In 2015 Wang became a taxi driver. When he noticed how much his customers were using their phones, he enlisted their help by asking them to post appeals on social media in the hope his missing daughter might see them.

He also printed and distributed 10,000 fliers that outlined the details of the case, including a description of how the young girl looked when she went missing in January 1994 and a local newspaper also published a report about his appeal.

Over the past three years Wang had been contacted by scores of young women who suspected they might be his daughter, but DNA tests ruled this out.

There are no official statistics about how many children go missing in China each year, but it is a long-standing problem in the country.

Every year tens of thousands are believed to be kidnapped, many of whom are then sold on for adoption.

Two weeks ago a 27-year-old woman in Jilin province contacted the Wangs via social media after reading about his search and realising she might be the girl in question.

The woman had been told she was adopted as a child and grew up under the name Kang Ying in a town only 20 kilometres (12 miles) away from her birth parents.

With the help of a non-governmental organisation that helps reunite parents with their missing children, the woman, now a mother of two young children, took a DNA test that on Sunday confirmed she was Wang’s daughter.

She is flying to Chengdu on Tuesday to meet her birth parents.Over the years Chinese police identified several women who could have been Qifeng, but DNA tests showed they were not his daughter.

But a breakthrough finally came late last year, when a police sketch artist read about Mr Wang and decided to help by producing a drawing of what Qifeng might look like as an adult. The picture was circulated online.

Thousands of kilometres away, on the other side of the country, a woman called Kang Ying saw the picture - and was shocked by how much it resembled her.

She had been raised by adoptive parents in a nearby town just 20km (12 miles) away, Chinese media reported.

Her adoptive family had told her that she was found on the side of a road in Chengdu as a child, Shanghaiist said.She contacted Mr Wang earlier this year, and found that she shared some unusual traits with his missing daughter, including a small scar on her forehead and a tendency to get nauseous whenever she cried.

They quickly arranged for a DNA test. This time, the result was positive - Mr Wang had finally found his long-lost child.

On Monday, Mr Wang and Kang Ying spoke for the first time via a voice messenger app, thecover.cn reported (in Chinese).

"From now on, Dad is here - you don't need to worry about anything - Dad will help you," Mr Wang said.

He also shared the news with his friends on social media, telling them: "My efforts of 24 years were not wasted! My daughter has been found - thank you everyone."

Image copyrightTHECOVER.CN

Image captionKang Ying's younger sister (left) holds up her new-found niece

On Tuesday, the pair were reunited in person when Kang Ying, who lives in northern Jilin province, flew to Chengdu with her husband, son and daughter.

Kang Ying and her mother, Liu Dengyeng, hugged each other tightly and cried as they were reunited - and were quickly joined by the rest of the family.

Kang Ying told reporters tearfully: "The whole world told me I didn't have a mother - but I do!" thecover.cn reported.

"I can't tell you how much hope, disappointment and despair we have gone through these past 24 years. Now we can finally meet again," Mr Wang was quoted as saying in the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper.