Four people convicted of abducting and selling 19 boys were sentenced to death on Thursday by the Kunming Intermediate People's Court in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Four others convicted of assisting the abductions were sentenced to eight to 13 years in prison.

According to court investigations, the four child traffickers were identified as Li Bifang, Jiang Chengpu, Yuan Guiyuan and Liu Weibing. The boys they abducted were all between two and six years old from Fuhai, a town within the city of Kunming. The convicts sold the children in Puning, a city of south China's Guangdong Province. The crimes occurred between August 2003 and June 2004.

On June 6, 2004, while they were doing a transaction, Li Bifang and Yuan Guiyuan were arrested by local public security officers.

All 19 boys have since been returned to their parents.

(Xinhua News Agency May 20, 2005)