Two girls abducted from HCMC pedestrian plaza safely reunited with street-vendor mother

After 42 hours of searching, they raided an apartment in luxury residential complex Saigon Pearl Monday afternoon and found the two girls confined there by Pham Huynh Nhat Vi, 21.

Colonel Nguyen Hai Phuoc, head of the District 1 police, said Vi admitted to luring the girls to her apartment with money and food.

She did not seem to have harmed them.

She initially told the police she took the girls home to "raise them."

Pham Huynh Nhat Vi when arrested by HCMC police at an apartment in the luxury residential complex Saigon Pearl, April 8, 2024. Photo by police

She is now in custody and the police are still looking into her motivation.

They said she acted alone and does not have any criminal record.

As of Tuesday morning the police had not provided any updates.

Their search began on Sunday, after Nguyen Thi Chi, 27, reported her two daughters missing.

Chi, who sells snacks in the Nguyen Hue pedestrian plaza in District 1, said last Wednesday she had left them in the care of a beverage vendor while she went to pay some money.

When she returned the girls were missing, but she only reported to the police a few days later.

A native of the central Phu Yen Province, Chi lives with her four children in a rented apartment in District 7.

Every day she drives with the four on a motorbike to Nguyen Hue Street to sell snacks from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Her eldest child, 10, takes care of the youngest, who is nine months old, in one corner of the street, while she and the other two walk around selling snacks.

Police return two daughters aged three and seven to Nguyen Thi Chi (L) at a station in HCMC's District 1, April 8, 2024. Photo by VnExpress/Quoc Thang

When the two children went missing, she contacted her two former husbands, their fathers, and her parents, but no one could provide any help.

On Sunday the police dispatched 200 officers and coordinated with various other agencies to search for the girls in entertainment areas and parks.

Finally, they got a lead when someone said a young woman was seen approaching the girls.