Police rescue sisters raised by rats in Shanghai sewers

Two abandoned girls who have been proven to be sisters have been found in city sewers by officers of the Shanghai Police Department.

The siblings who were raised by group of rats and who appear to have been abandoned there for years were first spotted two weeks ago by some city workers who were inspecting the sewer system.

Recounting what they saw when the girls were first spotted, the group of four men claimed to have seen two young girls, almost naked, running around and scavenging trash, in the sewer tunnels.

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“The girls were followed by a large swarm of rats, possibly formed by thousands of individuals”, one of the men said.

Officers of the Shanghai Police Department were rapidly mobilized on the site, when the two girls were spotted again yesterday, scavenging for food in a public garbage dump and they were able to capture them, after shooting them with tranquilliser darts.

The pair are now in admitted at the Renji Hospital, where they’ll both receive treatment and undergo proper medical examination.

According to Dr. Wu Jieng Lao, who examined them upon their arrival at the hospital, “The girls are twins, and believed to be aged between 8 and 10 years old.

They are extremely thin and show signs of severe malnutrition, but they are surprisingly healthy considering their previous living conditions.

“When the police told us where they had found the girls that they had brought us, we really didn’t expect them to be this healthy,” Dr. Wu told reporters.

“It’s too early to say if they suffer any diseases, but they appear to be in rather good shape. They don’t seem to have ever learned any language or have had much contact with humans at all, so it seems they were abandoned at a very young age.” Wu added.

Local police have already opened an investigation to find the girls’ origin and also identify their parents.

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