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Ninety suspects were arrested on charges of abducting Xinjiang children and coercing them to be thieves or robbers, the Ministry of Public Security said on Wednesday.

A total of 28 children were rescued in an operation launched by police in places involving Beijing, Jilin, Guangdong, Shaanxi and Xinjiang in October, according to a statement issued by the ministry.

The police busted 12 gangs on Oct 30.

Police said the gangs are suspected of kidnapping children in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and forcing them to commit crimes such as theft in major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Changchun in Jilin province, and Changsha in Hunan province.

Suspected gang members "beat, abused or threatened" these young children to force them to steal and rob in public places, such as shopping centers, underpasses, and railway stations, Huang Shihai, spokesman for the ministry, said on Wednesday.

The operation is a part of a campaign to crack down on abduction of children that the ministry launched in April 2011 and will be complete by the end of this year.

Police have arrested 2,749 suspects believed to be involved in abducting and coercing minors from Xinjiang since the launch of the campaign, according to the ministry.

Police have rescued 2,274 children in the campaign.

Gangsters choose Xinjiang children partly because police have trouble investigating these children due to language barriers, said Dai Peng, director of the criminal investigation department under the Chinese People's Public Security University.

Ablikim, a Uygur volunteer, has worked as an interpreter for police to rescue vagrant children from Xinjiang since 2007.

The 28-year-old said that, based on his experience, most of the vagrant children were from poor families in Xinjiang who dropped out of school. Human traffickers tricked children to come to cities outside Xinjiang, promising to help them make a fortune, and later forced these children to beg or pick pockets.

The volunteer urged the government to adopt a comprehensive approach to prevent more children from Xinjiang from ending up on the streets.

（中国日报网英语点津 Helen 编辑）

About the broadcaster:

Emily Cheng is an editor at China Daily. She was born in Sydney, Australia and graduated from the University of Sydney with a degree in Media, English Literature and Politics. She has worked in the media industry since starting university and this is the third time she has settled abroad - she interned with a magazine in Hong Kong 2007 and studied at the University of Leeds in 2009.