Missing man finally reunites with his family after five years

An Anhui native suffering from a mental condition who has been missing from his hometown for the past five years was finally reunited with his family on July 2.

The 28-year-old man, surnamed Wang, is believed to have been in Shanghai since September 2014 when passers-by spotted him wandering the streets. They later sent him to a social assistance station where he was provided with shelter and daily meals.

Due to his mental condition, the man was unable to tell workers where he came from.

According to Qi Wei, deputy director of the relief identification department at Shanghai No 2 Social Assistance Station, Wang only told station workers in June this year that his hometown was in Kengkou.

The workers soon identified Kengkou as a township in Shexian county of Huangshan city, Anhui province and got in contact with their peers from that region. They later discovered that Wang fit the description of the man who went missing on a rainy night in the summer of 2014.

Over the past five years, Wang's parents and their extended families and friends have gone about searching for him in their hometown as well as in neighboring provinces, but to no avail. It still remains a mystery how the man made it to Shanghai.

"He recognized his parents immediately after reaching home and cried in his mother's arms," Qi said.