Lin Min

    linmin67@hotmail.com

    NANSHAN police said Thursday that they had found two Hong Kong schoolgirls in Xiamen, 50 hours after they were reported missing at Shenzhen Bay Checkpoint.

    The girls, surnamed Li and Hong, were found with an 18-year-old man at a rental home in Xiamen.

    Police said Li, 12, and Hong, 14, boarded a high-speed train from Shenzhen to Xiamen with the man, surnamed Qiu, on Monday. The girls became acquainted with Qiu through a social media platform, according to a police statement.

    Qiu tricked the girls into going to Xiamen by promising they could find a job and that he would provide them with entertainment, police said, without elaborating.

    With the help of Xiamen police, Nanshan police found the girls in Haicang District, Xiamen, on Wednesday afternoon, and brought them to Shenzhen that night. The girls have been reunited with their families.

    Qiu has been detained on suspicions of trafficking underage people.

    The two girls were last seen at the northeast part of the checkpoint’s inspection building at 2 p.m. Sunday before they were reported missing by their families.