A mother who recently arrived from China is desperate to find her 17-year-old son who has been mysteriously missing for almost three weeks.
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“I want him back at any cost, I would be ready to trade my own life”, pushes SuJing Nie in Mandarin, between two sobs.
It is his nephew by marriage, Yuan Tian, who translates the interview into English. He explains that they haven’t seen Feng Tian since October 17th. In Montreal for only three months, the teenager speaks neither French nor English, which makes them fear for his safety.
“He is very shy. As far as we know, he has no friends. He may have gotten lost,” said the engineering student at Concordia University, racked with worry.
In Montreal for six years, Yuan Tian organized the arrival of his cousin Feng, renting for his mother, his 10-year-old brother and him an apartment near his in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district, in Montreal.
Warm milk before bedtime
Mme Nie was at home when she received a final text message from her son on October 17 around 9:30 p.m. saying that he had prepared some hot milk and was about to go to bed.
But the next morning, she didn’t find him in her room.
She was initially worried to know that he had gone to his classes without his bag, knowing that he had exams. Then, unable to reach him, the concern took on a whole new dimension.
Yuan Tian believes his cousin may have gone for a walk after texting his mother, to relieve stress.
“I don’t know what happened. He may have lost his cards, his wallet and can’t come back,” he worries.
The teenager’s routine was well established, he points out. Every weekday morning, he commuted by public transit to his English classes at the YMCA International Language School downtown, before having dinner and spending the afternoon at his cousin’s house. In the evening, he returned to the other apartment rented for his mother, his brother and himself for supper and sleep.
On October 17, he spoke to her for the last time around 4:30 p.m. at his home on Sherbrooke Street West.
“When he left my house, we talked about his day, his lessons,” he recalls.
Fears for his safety
The family notified the police, who issued a search warrant.
Every evening, SuJing Nie goes from Saint-Jacques Street to Chinatown to try to find her son and Yuan Tian organizes hunts with his friends. They put up posters of Feng everywhere around, to no avail.
They received video from the police from a surveillance camera showing a teenager walking on a pedestrian bridge on Highway 15 near Saint-Jacques Street.
“We’re not 100% sure it’s him,” says Yuan Tian, showing the video.
On Monday, the family will not have heard from Feng for exactly three weeks.
“Since he recently arrived in the country, the investigators and his relatives have reason to fear for his safety”, one can read on the notice of search of the police of Montreal.
Wanted poster
- Feng Tian is 1.80m tall and weighs 68kg. He has black eyes and hair.
- The teenager was last seen on October 17 near the intersection of Sherbrooke Street West and Cavendish Boulevard in the Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough of Montreal.
- He wore a black sweater and coat and white and black shoes.