A 3-YEAR-OLD boy was abducted in Caopu, Buji Subdistrict, Longgang District, a week ago, reminding people of a series of abductions that occurred in the same area back in 2003.

Less than two months ago, another 2-year-old boy went missing for four days in a nearby community before being found by a security guard.

Migrant parents busy at work should keep a close eye on their children, an official with the local women's federation said.

"I took my boy to sit on a mechanical horse in front of the Concord Pharmacy in the Caopu community midday May 8. As he loves the game, I left him alone to enjoy it and went into a shoe shop opposite the pharmacy," the Daily Sunshine quoted Liu Huaqiang's father as saying yesterday. "Just a few minutes later, when I returned, my boy was gone."

A street monitor later revealed a woman had talked intimately with the boy and taken him away.

There has been no news about the boy even though his father put up posters appealing for help in finding him.

The other boy was luckier. Two-year-old Xiao Wei was taken away by a young woman who came to rent a DVD in his parents' shop in the Xiliang community not far from Caopu on the night of March 21. The woman had arrived in a car and took away the boy while his uncle went to the bathroom. But a security guard found the boy three days later and took him to a police station. "My son told me an aunty had planned to take him for a ride in an airplane," said Xiao Wei's mother.

"They changed him into different clothes. Perhaps they heard something and did not dare to sell him."

Local police are investigating the two cases.

A total of 18 boys went missing near Caopu in 2003, most of whom were children aged under 5 from migrant families. On Nov. 12 that year, Guangdong and Shenzhen police announced that they had cracked the case with the ringleader of the abductions sentenced to death and the majority of the boys sent back to their families.

Editor: Yan