She was four years old when raging tsunami waters swept her away from her family.
Raudhatul Jannah slipped from her parents’ grasp as the natural disaster devastated their family home in Aceh, Indonesia on Boxing Day in 2004, Fairfax reports.
The family searched for Jannah and her seven-year-old brother, who was also swept away, for a month following the disaster. They eventually gave up hope of finding either child alive.
But two months ago- almost a decade after the children first went missing — their mother’s brother spotted a girl in a village who looked like his niece.
He learned the girl had been swept by the tsunami to some remote islands off Aceh, the ABC reports. It emerged she had been rescued by a fisherman after the tsunami and raised by an elderly woman, who had called the girl Wenni.
When Jannah’s parents visited ‘Wenni’, they were delighted to learn she was their missing daughter.
“I am so grateful to God for reuniting us with our child after 10 years of being separated,” Jannah’s mother, Jamaliah, told AFP.
“My heart beat so fast when I saw her. I hugged her and she hugged me back and felt so comfortable in my arms,” she said. “My husband and I are very happy.”
Jamaliah added she had no doubt the girl was her daughter, but that she would be happy to take DNA tests if necessary.
Jannah, now 14, returned to her hometown on Wednesday and is now with her family.
The ABC reports that Jamaliah belived Jannah’s brother had also survived, as he had originally been stranded with the girl.
“We will look for him on Banyak Island because we believe he is still alive,” she said.
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed an estimated 230,000 people in 14 countries including Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
Top Comments
When I heard about this I felt joy and wonder. But now, I tend to feel for the family who took in and cared for this girl, who loved her for 10 years and have lost her. That's hard.
I read where she spent 10 years begging on the street for these people, I could be wrong but surely they could have tried a little harder to find her family. The island isn't that big.