Man Who Was Abducted As A Child Finds His Way Home 23 Years Later With Google Maps

This is an incredible story. A man from the Sichuan region of China, who was abducted as a five year old has managed to find his way back home after spending years analysing Google Maps.

The Shanghaiist reports that Luo Gang was abducted 23 years ago and taken 1,500 kilometres away from his home to a city in the Fujian province.  Though Luo says that his adopted parents always treated him well and loved him as their own, he desperately wanted to find his birth parents.

Child abduction and trafficking is widespread in China and many people believe this is because of the country’s one-child policy and the demand that it creates for sons.

“Everyday before I went to bed, I forced myself to re-live the life  spent in my old home. So I wouldn’t forget,” said Luo.

However, the only thing that Luo could remember about where he came from was that there were two bridges in the town where he grew up.

Luo drew a rough map of his hometown from memory before he posted it to the Bring Lost Babies Home website. This is a website devoted to locating missing children in China.

Luo was originally from the Sichuan area of China

Shortly after he posted his map online, someone wrote back to him and told him that a couple from a small town in Sichuan had lost a son 23 years ago. This valuable bit of information matched up with Luo’s own story perfectly.

Luo searched for pictures of the town in Sichuan on Google Maps and was thrilled when they were familiar to him. To confirm his suspicious, he used Google Maps to zoom in on an area called Yaojiba – there Luo recognised the two bridges that he remembered.

Luo was reunited with his birth family this week, 23 years after he was taken from them.