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t 8:30 on the morning of January 4, 2013, a fire broke out in a residential building in Lankao, a county under the administration of Kaifeng City, Henan Province. After the blaze was extinguished, the bodies of four children were found by firefighters. Three other young children had died from burns and smoke inhalation on their way to hospital. Another remained in critical condition. All of the victims, two of whom were newborn babies, were later found to be orphans adopted by local resident Yuan Lihai, 47. In the last 25 years, Yuan had taken in over one hundred abandoned children, most of whom suffered from congenital physical defects such as cerebral palsy, albinism, polio and deafness. In order to pay for food and lodging for her charges, Yuan worked as a cleaner at the local People’s Hospital and also ran a small food stall at its front gate. Donations from local residents made up the remainder of her meager income. A total of 34 abandoned children and young people had lived with Yuan. After the fire, the rest of them were sent to a State-run halfway house in Kaifeng City, as no public childcare facilities exist in Lankao, which has a population of 760,000. Yuan had been at work when the fire broke out, and rushed home only to be detained on arrival by police. The next day, the Lankao County government issued its official report on the accident, praising the “quick response” of local rescue services before condemning Yuan’s “illegal adoptions” as the reason for the tragic death toll. This led to a public outcry, with many claiming that the government itself had created the circumstances which had compelled Yuan to take orphans into her own home.
Photo by Yang Shenlai/CFP
Adoption?
Yuan Lihai is denied access to “her children” at a local hospital, January 8, 2013
NEWSCHINA I March 2013
Despite Yuan’s fame, none of the other residents in the stricken apartment building could pinpoint her home. The young people she cared for lived in four separate, cramped places including apartment buildings and shacks, while Yuan herself regularly slept at her food stall outside the local hospital. According to neighbors, Yuan first adopted
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