A three-year-old girl has been rescued at the last minute after a wild monkey abducted her and carried her up to the edge of a cliff before dumping her in the nearby bushes.
The toddler was apparently accompanying her parents to a field in Liupanshui, in China’s south-western Guizhou Province, on 21st October.
Her father, surnamed Liu, said he and his wife were doing farm work and had only turned their heads for a few seconds before she disappeared.
They had placed her under the shade of a nearby tree, but she was later nowhere to be found.
Liu said: “It was just a minute, and when I turned around, the child was gone. We were all very anxious.
“The child’s mother started crying immediately, and I comforted her while contacting the police.”
The family rushed over to the nearby village to look for help, where they were able to review surveillance footage that reportedly revealed a wild macaque had snatched the girl away.
Police immediately began a search and rescue operation in the nearby dense forest.
During the search, the officers reportedly found themselves amid dense vegetation and treacherous mountain paths, with steep slopes and branches and leaves blocking out the sun.
Despite the harsh terrain and being equipped with just simple, makeshift self-defense tools, the officers decided to keep going and look for the helpless three-year-old.
They climbed carefully, nearly slipping multiple times.
After more than two hours of rescue efforts, the police finally found the girl in a thicket near a cliff.
When the police saw the child, she had already been abandoned by the monkey in the bushes, with several scratches and wounds on her body, and with dirtied clothes.
They comforted the girl who was reportedly so frightened that she could not even make a sound.
Liu said that after the incident, he asked the child if she had been caught by a monkey, and the child nodded in response.
He said: “I asked again ‘Where did the monkey go? and the child pointed in the direction of the mountain with her finger.”
Paramedics on the scene examined her and found she had no injuries apart from the minor scratches.
She was happily reunited with her parents.
Liu later said that he was very grateful to the help of the police to find the child safely in such a short period of time.
The village party secretary also said that a villager once witnessed a big monkey near the incident site and it is unclear if they are planning to take measures to keep the monkey away in the future.
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Story By: Simona Kitanovska, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Asia Wire Report
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