My mum was almost kidnapped as a child

This is my mums story from the early 80s. She was only 4-5 years old so this is what she remembers. I personally believe they were human traffickers.<br><br>My mum is from a large town in Sardinia, which is an island in Italy. Although it is Italian, no one speaks Italian there. The locals speak Sardinian, an ancient dialect that my family does not speak. We are from Genoa, in Liguria, and my dad is the only Sardinian blooded person in my family.<br><br>My family moved to Sardinia in the 80s because my dad worked in a NATO base there. It was a difficult time for us. We were not welcomed by the locals, we did not speak their language and my dad was working all the time so they were pretty much alone.<br><br>They got to know the owner of the bar where my mum used to go every morning to buy milk. She was a Sardinian, who also did not speak Italian. My mum remembers that the woman was very nice to her and the two started to have a friendship.<br><br>One day my parents took my mum to a village fair. My dad was working and my mum was starting to get sleepy. It was late and the fair was very crowded. The woman from the bar saw them and offered to walk them back home. She offered to carry my mum if she was too sleepy to walk. My mum remembers being carried by the woman while my parents walked behind them. <br><br>When they were only a few meters from their house, she suddenly covered my mums mouth with her hand and whispered in Sardinian to some men that were in a van which stopped behind them. She then lowered my mum to the ground and told her to go play on the beach which was only a few meters from where they were.<br><br>My mum then went to the beach, which was deserted because it was nightime. The men grabbed her and threw her in the van. They drove off but suddenly had to stop the van because it had broken down. Before they could fix it, a car stopped behind them. It was a man who witnessed something going on and stopped to see what was happening. The men left the van and ran away before the man could get out of the car. My mum says the man was shocked when he saw her in the back of the van.<br><br>The man got out of the car and started to walk towards the van, but when he saw her he got back in the car and drove off. My mum remembers that the man got scared to the point of driving away. She believes he thought she was dead. As soon as the man drove away my mum got out of the van and ran in the opposite direction. When she got to the main road she saw her parents looking for her. She was so terrified that she could not even talk and explain what happened.<br><br>The woman from the bar was never seen again after that night. The bar closed and no one knew what happened to her or where she went. She never showed up at the bar again.<br><br>My family left the island a few years later and moved to another city. After the abduction my mum never felt safe. She was always afraid of someone grabbing her. She was also afraid of closed spaces, like elevators. Although she was so young, she always remembered what happened that night.<br><br>My family have since moved back to the village. My grandparents still live there and my family moved back in the 90s. The bar has since reopened under different ownership. My family has since found out that the woman was a criminal who sold children.