A Chinese woman who was abducted from her hometown as a child and married off to a stranger has been reunited with her dying mother 40 years after she vanished.

Zhang Buju's family abandoned all hope of finding her again but her mother, now 89, who was reunited with her long lost daughter on her deathbed, refused to leave the town in case she returned.

Zhang was 15 when she was coaxed away from her native Kai County, south west China, by a man who claimed he could find her a well paying job in the city.

40 years after being abducted from her native Kai County, south west China, Zhang Buju (in green) was reunited with her mother (bottom right) who never lost hope she would return

Zhang, who was coaxed out of her village by a man who claimed he could find her work in the city, is embraced by her sister in her home village this week

Zhang's family and neighbours (pictured) searched nearby villages and provinces for ten years before giving up hope

She was shipped off to Nanyang City in Henan Province to forced to marry someone she had never met.

Dozens of her family members searched surrounding villages and provinces for ten years before giving up the search.

Zhang meanwhile fell into a life of loneliness. Unable to understand the local dialect and suffering through a 'non existent' relationship with her husband, she accepted her fate as a 'prisoner'.

It was not until 2015, when she saw TV reports about long lost relatives being united and heard of the advancements in DNA identification, that she thought about returning home.

She was shipped off to Nanyang City in Henan Province to forced to marry someone she had never met

Unable to understand the local dialect and suffering through a 'non existent' relationship with her husband, Zhang (pictured) accepted her fate as a 'prisoner'

It was not until 2015 that Zhang thought about returning home and enlisted the help of a missing people's organisation

She contacted China's most famous missing people's organisation, Baby Come Home, whose volunteers trawled through reports to find her family. A match was found at the start of this year.

Incredibly, Zhang's family had also gone to Baby Come Home for help and waited years for a successful match.

Zhang, now 54, flew back to her hometown for the first time in 40 years this week, where she was greeted by her teary family and neighbours, most of whom never thought they would see her again.

Local newspapers and website published heartwarming photos of Zhang embracing her little sister Chen Buzhen and her older sister Chen Buqun, both of whom now have grown up children.

Zhang's mother (pictured), 89, refused to leave their village because she always knew she would come home

Zhang (right), now 54, flew back to her hometown for the first time in 40 years this week

However, most moving of all was the reunion Buju had with her mother, who, at the age of 89, witness her daughter's return on her deathbed.

The emotions scenes were hailed by the public as yet another win for China's increasingly effective missing people organisations, with hundreds of families made whole again every year.