[ 2011-12-23 ]

Tsunami girl 'turns up after seven years presumed dead'
The girl named Wati, 15, who uses just one name,
was ripped from her mother's grasp in the province
of Aceh by the raging waters and has not been seen
since.

But on Wednesday a friend of the girl's
grandfather, Ibrahim, brought a teenaged girl in a
headscarf to his house in the city of Meulaboh.

She had been discovered sitting in silence in a
coffee bar, but when questioned she said that she
had come by bus from Banda Aceh and was trying to
find her way home and did not know how.

The girl said she could not remember any of her
relatives' names except Ibrahim, which made her
grandfather think she could be his long-lost
grandchild.

He immediately summoned her parents, Yusniar and
Yusuf, who confirmed that the dark-skinned Wati
was their daughter from a mole and a small scar on
her elbow.

What had happened to Wati in the intervening seven
years was unclear.

She was lost when she lost grip of her mother as
her home village of Ujong Baroh was hit by the
tsunami. Yusniar managed to hold on to Wati's two
siblings, but became resigned that her
eight-year-old daughter was gone for good.

Aceh was one of the worst hit places in the
Indonesian tsunami, losing 168,000 people out of a
global total of 230,000 dead.

Source - The Telegraph

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