1,680 missing children recovered since January in major public security operation

Liu Jingjun (center), who was abducted 11 years ago, is surrounded by his father Liu Liqin and his mother at their home in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, in 2020. [Photo by Yang Zhoufen/For China Daily]

China's public security forces have found 1,680 missing children as of Monday since the launch of a special operation to track and find missing and abducted children in January, the Ministry of Public Security announced Tuesday.

Tong Bishan, deputy director of the ministry's Criminal Investigation Bureau, said at a news briefing that among the 1,680 cases, the longest unsolved case was 54 years.

Police across the country also cracked 85 long-pending cases, arrested 223 suspects in abduction and trafficking, and organized more than 400 family reunions, he said.

The operation, dubbed "Reunion", kicked off in January aiming to solve the backlog of child abduction and trafficking cases, arrest suspects and search for missing children. Tong said the ministry has directly supervised major cases, deployed a number of experts in criminal technology and intelligence research, pooled all resources and used the national DNA system in the course of the action.

"As long as one single child abduction case remains unsolved and one missing child is not recovered, the public security authorities will not give up," he added.