Artificial intelligent assistant

What does 「きみをしたって きたというが」 mean? I have found it in a manga in a situation that there is a news reporter asking the following sentence to a boy whom the reporter thought that he is living in a ruin building with a group of little kids. ** **

> **** ?

There is a transitive verb which means _to yearn for_.

xcX3v84RxoQ-4GxG32940ukFUIEgYdPy eb0196f95f9ef51a9631eb243fc9cc14