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CNN Live Saturday

Search for Yukun Jia Continues

Aired August 03, 2002 - 12:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: More now on another case of a parent's nightmare. Clues are few, but searchers are not giving up in the hunt for a 12-year-old Chinese girl who disappeared yesterday at the San Francisco Airport. She was traveling with a youth tour group, heading to space camp. She's still missing, but overnight, the rest of the group resumed its journey to Alabama. Our Charles Molineaux spoke with members of the group this morning in between changing planes at Atlanta's airport. And Charles, the tour group, are they expressing any fear for the rest of the kids in this group?

CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not a lot of reaction. Keep in mind, this is a group of teenagers on a trip, and also the fact is that they really didn't know or they weren't very close at all, which is something of a problem for investigators in terms of how much help they can expect to get.

The group leaders say that they are going to be keeping a very close watch on the rest of this group after the disappearance of this girl, 12-year-old Yukun Jia. The group got into Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta today, and they walked through and then proceeded on to space camp. Group leaders say that last night in San Francisco, they again met with police, as well as the consul from China, and were, again, talked to about this, but not a whole lot came out. The big problem is the fact that really they are essentially a whole lot of strangers who had not met each other up until the start of this tour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We come from different cities. We're not very acquainted with her. So we cannot recognize her, and also, we don't know her. Because she's from Xien (ph), and this lady is from Shanghai, and I'm from Harbin (ph). So different cities. And we just met at Beijing before the departure, and each teacher takes charge over their own group.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MOLINEAUX: Twelve-year-old Yukun Jia disappeared on Thursday, sometime between the group's arrival at San Francisco International Airport and its tour of Stanford. She may never have left the airport.

Besides concern she may have been abducted or just gotten lost, there is a speculation she defected. Her tour leaders are refusing to even guess about that.

Incredibly, they actually had to worry about another student for a while this morning. One of the boys was unaccounted for between the plane, the baggage claim and their bus, which ordinarily wouldn't be that big of a deal, except, of course, under these circumstances. He turned up safe and almost sound. Sick, actually. He got a little air sick, and had been holed up in the restroom for a while, but otherwise they have gotten on their buses to go off to Huntsville, Alabama and onto space camp, something that a lot of these kids, according to their tour leaders, have been looking forward to, and in some cases, have paid a lot of money for -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Good job. Thanks very much, Charles Molineaux, with that CNN exclusive -- the only one to talk to the leaders of that tour group.

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