At 7.30 pm on February 28, Vu Nha Uyen, 7, was found missing. After hours of searching, her relatives began scouring every corner.

Seeing the grandparents searching for their granddaughter in the dark, neighbors and hundreds of people from the entire area split up across various routes to assist in the search. Doan Ha Commune Police quickly joined the effort to locate the missing girl.

Fears that the girl had been kidnapped intensified when villagers reported spotting a car with an unfamiliar license plate in the locality.

Nguyen Trung Kien, 50, Uyen’s grandfather, was still nervous when recounting the incident that occurred several days ago.

On the afternoon of February 28, as usual, after dinner, his wife Hieu tutored their granddaughter. Since it was the end of the week, Hieu allowed Uyen to finish the lesson earlier than usual, before bathing and washing clothes.

After bathing and cleaning up the kitchen, Hieu returned to the living room and was startled to find her granddaughter missing. She hurriedly went outside, calling for the child. However, her repeated calls went unanswered.

At that point, Kien checked the family’s security camera and saw Uyen climbing through the iron fence to leave the house. Neighbors with security cameras also reviewed their cameras, noting that the girl had walked alone toward the fields behind the residential area.

People in the neighborhood mentioned a strange car parked in the fields that afternoon, heightening the family’s fear that Uyen might have been kidnapped.

Hundreds of people fanned out across the roads, along the dike, and into the fields to search for the girl.

"For the first time here, a large number of people united for a single mission: finding the missing girl," Nguyen Van Sy, a local man, recalled.

Villagers mobilized all available lighting equipment to scour every corner within a radius of about 5 kilometers.

Ha Tien Truong, 28 years old, the first person to spot Uyen, recalled: "I saw a faint glimpse of hair in the garden, and shone my flashlight carefully. I found the girl squatting with her arms crossed in a patch of grass. I immediately shouted to announce that Uyen was here."

When Uyen was found, it was midnight. The nearly four-hour effort, with the entire village working together to locate the missing girl, concluded successfully as she was found safe and healthy.

Kien, the grandfather of Uyen, said he was touched as all the villagers had helped find the little girl at night, showing that there is strength in unity.

Ha Nguyen