The Taiwanese aunt of Iruan Ergui Wu (
Iruan was returned to his maternal grandmother in the southern Brazilian city of Canoas last week after spending the past three years with his Taiwanese relatives.
Lee Su-hua (
PHOTO: AP
"When we arrived from Taiwan, the grandmother said she would welcome us to visit her home and take a look at his new environ-ment," said Wu, who traveled to Brazil with her nephew.
"But we came and we never had a chance to see anything. We weren't even allowed to see him," Wu said.
Lee told the news channel that after the boy was handed over to the Brazilian relatives, she was only allowed to make phone calls to him during her stay in Canoas.
The lawyer said a farewell lunch had been planned with the boy.
"The aunt talked to Iruan and told him we're going back to Taiwan," Wu said. "Iruan asked, `Didn't you say yesterday that we were going to have lunch today. Why didn't we?' And the aunt said that we went there but you didn't go."
"He said he missed us all," Lee told the news channel at the airport as she prepared to fly back to Taiwan.
The TV station repeatedly showed scenes of the chubby boy running to the gate of the home before being picked up by a Brazilian uncle, who carried him into the house away from TV crews.
His grandmother, Rosa Leocadia Da Silva Ergui, couldn't be immediately reached for comment yesterday.
But Taiwan's chief representative in Brazil, Louis Chou (
Chinese-language newspapers also quoted Wu as saying the grandmother refused to discuss his Taiwanese relatives' demand that Iruan visit Taiwan once a year.
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