She’s fun, funny and extremely loving, says NI mum of missing Nora as she tells of daughter’s health woes
PLUS: SPECIAL REPORT ON THE MYSTERY THAT’S EVERY PARENT’S NIGHTMARE
THE distraught family of Nora Quoirin described the missing teenager as “a special person” who is “fun, funny and extremely loving” as the frantic search for her continued.
Nora (15), whose mother is from Belfast, vanished from a Malaysian nature reserve shortly after arriving at the remote holiday resort near Seremban, about 39 miles south of Kuala Lumpur.
The vulnerable London teenager’s parents said she was gone when they woke up last Sunday morning.
A widespread search continues involving hundreds of people equipped with drones and helicopters with thermal imaging cameras, and an elite unit of the Malaysian police has now been deployed to help in the hunt.
In a moving statement, her increasingly worried parents Meabh and Sebastian, who is French, said that Nora’s “family is her whole world” and they stressed that “she is not independent and does not go anywhere alone”.
They also said that their eldest child — who especially loves “cuddles and a night-time story” — has previously travelled around the world without ever “wandering off or getting lost”.
“Nora is a very special person. She is fun, funny, and extremely loving,” the statement read.
“With her family, she is very affectionate — family is her whole world and she loves to play games, like Cat Bingo, with us. She likes to tell us silly jokes and wear clever, colourful T-shirts.
“She is not like other teenagers. She is not independent and does not go anywhere alone.”
Her family also revealed how the young girl, who needed surgery when she was born, spent time in hospital and continues to attend specialist consultations.
“Nora was born with Holoprosencephaly; this means she has a smaller brain,” they said.
“All her life she has spent a lot of time in hospital. When she was born she needed operations to help her breathing. She has specialists that monitor her growth, her physical abilities and her strength, and especially her mental capacity.”
Although local police are treating Nora’s disappearance as a missing person’s case, her parents have consistently claimed she may have been abducted.
A window in the holiday cottage where the family were staying was found to be open when her father discovered she was gone and raised the alarm.
In the statement the Quoirins said Nora “has always needed dedicated specialist educational provision” and they said she “attends a school for children and young people with learning and communication difficulties”.
“Nora and her family are bilingual and bi-cultural,” it said.
“Nora is very proud that she can speak French as well as English. But her verbal communication is limited. Nora can read like a young child, but she cannot write more than a few words.
“She has a good memory but she cannot understand anything conceptual. She is unable to do maths and so things like money are impossible to manage.
“She cannot make or receive phone calls independently.
“She can wash and dress herself, though she cannot manage buttons, and struggles to wash her hair.”
The family also revealed how
the schoolgirl likes embracing new challenges. “At school, she is learning to ride a bicycle properly. Nora likes to walk with her family, but her balance is limited and she struggles with coordination.”
Her parents described Nora as “very sensitive”, adding that outside of the family she is “very
shy and can be quite anxious”. They stressed that “she has been to Asia, and many European countries before, and has never wandered off or got lost”. They added: “Every night, her special time is for cuddles and a night-time story with her mum. And she was extremely excited about the family holiday in Malaysia.”
Yesterday, popular Malaysian actress Fasha Sandha shared a picture of the teenager on her Instagram account, asking the public to help find her.
The search entered its sixth day yesterday and, at a morning Press briefing, Police Chief Mohamad Mat Yusop said teams have combed a 6km-square area around the resort but found nothing. He said officers are now investigating buildings and chalets in the resort and checking phone and email records.
The revelations came amid a dispute between fire and police officials over whether footprints found in the jungle are Nora’s. Ahmad Mukhlis Mokhtar of the Fire and Rescue Department earlier said “our detective canines had spotted footprints” which he believed to belong to Nora.
However, police denied the footprint finding at a Press conference yesterday afternoon, leaving the search in confusion amid growing fears that it will be hampered by bad weather.
Questions were also raised about whether Nora wandered away from the resort through a huge gap in a fence.
Last night the Garda said they have deployed a Garda Liaison Officer (GLO) to Malaysia to assist the Department of Foreign Affairs, which is currently providing consular assistance to the family.
A spokesman said the Garda Liasion Officer will liaise as required with the Malaysian police and UK and French authorities to assist in the search.
Yesterday there was heartbreaking new footage of the moment police broadcast her mother’s voice into the forest in the hope of coaxing her out from a possible hiding place.
“Nora darling, Nora I love you, Mum is here,” Meabh Quoirin’s voice called out in a loudspeaker message.
Nora’s photograph has been distributed at roadblocks in the area and native forest trackers are calling out her name as they search the dense forest.
A Belfast GoFundMe drive has reached £74,000 in addition to €9,000 (£8,360) raised in France.
Organisers say that all donations from both campaigns will be donated to Nora’s family.
To donate, see www.gofundme. com/f/wt9zdm-find-nora-quoirin
An able-bodied person would be weak by the fifth day
Nora, darling. Nora, I love you. Mum is here” — the heart-wrenching sound that rang out over loudspeakers across the dense Malaysian jungle last night as the desperate search for 15-yearold Nora Quoirin continued.
The tearful recordings were the latest in a series of attempts to locate the missing London schoolgirl, who vanished last Sunday on the first day of her family trip to the country.
One week on from the last time she saw her daughter, her devastated mother, Meabh, who is originally from Belfast, said that the family “must remain hopeful”.
The schoolgirl is believed to have left her room in the family’s eco-resort cottage in her underwear via the window before 8am on Sunday and then vanished.
Her family maintain that Nora, who has learning disabilities, has been abducted because she “never goes anywhere by
herself ”.
In an emotional statement released yesterday, the family explained that Nora was born with holoprosencephaly, meaning she has a smaller than normal brain, and is a “very special person”.
“She is fun, funny, and extremely loving.
“With her family, she is very affectionate — family is her whole world and she loves to play games, like Cat Bingo, with us,” the statement read.
“She likes to tell us silly jokes and wear clever, colourful T-shirts.
She is not like other teenagers. She is not independent and does not go anywhere alone.
“Nora is very sensitive. Outside the family, she is very shy and can be quite anxious.”
Nora arrived at the Dusun Resort, near Seremban, the day before she disappeared for a twoweek family holiday with her mother, French-born father Sebastian and two other siblings. It was August 3.
A popular destination for families, Dusun is a small resort nestled within a fruit orchard.
Set up on a small hill, the luxurious private holiday villas give
spectacular views of the Berembun rainforest reserve below. Activities guests partake in, including treks into the jungle, to nearby waterfalls and through forests, are billed as raising awareness of Malaysia’s beautiful natural heritage and supporting local traditions and communities. Villas cost up to £1,000 per week to stay in.
Just an hour from the capital,
Kuala Lumpur, the area is described as a haven in the wilderness, the “perfect nature escape” and “paradise”, and it attracts families the world over.
Yesterday, the peace of the tropical paradise was shattered by the sound of a helicopter and the constant whirr of drones scanning the forest area from the air while sniffer dogs scoured the land.
Search teams equipped with thermal imaging equipment have gathered at the resort and are spanning out in their hundreds across the area looking for the child.
Yesterday, they were joined by elite Malaysian commando forces, with two dozen members of the VAT 69 special police unit assigned to the huge search operation.
Malaysian police believe Nora could only have left the resort villa through an open groundfloor window.
They released pictures of the villa’s living room and the open window, which is narrow but police believe Nora could have squeezed through it.
The Quoirin family could do nothing but watch, wait and pray as any news filtered in, with some claims unfounded and others disputed by police officers.
Some of her family have taken to trekking through the boulder-filled hills in search of her.
There were rumours that she had taken a shower at a water tank below the houses.
Yesterday, an official involved in the search told reporters that several footprints believed to belong to Nora were found by a canine unit of the fire and rescue department. However, police said this was not the case.
Searchers say the youngster could be hiding.
District police chief Mohamad Nor Marzukee Besar emphasised the significance of time passing, saying that “an able-bodied or normal person would be weak by the fifth day and that is why we need to find (Nora) as soon as possible”.
Malaysian police have even considered the possibility that “jungle spirits” may have had a role in her disappearance.
Senior officers have discussed
local folklore concerning the existence of mystical forces in the jungle adjoining Dusun.
Ex-RUC detective Jim Gamble, former chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, who worked on the case of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, says Nora’s case bears similarities to that of both Madeleine and of Ben Needham, the Sheffield boy who disappeared on the Greek island of Kos in 1991.
“Some of the issues that the family, police and media will address are similar to the Madeleine McCann and Ben Needham cases, in as much as you are operating in a different environment, an extended distance from your home and the culture that you are used to,” he says.
“There is working with a police force in a different country and making sure you understand the cultural niceties, so that you don’t end up alienating those who you are really relying on to push forward the search for your child.
“Nora’s family have been pitch-perfect in that. They have been so appreciative of what the local people and police and other agencies have done.”
Mr Gamble adds: “Most people will have experience of local children who go missing, but in these type of cases you take the three hypotheses: one she has wandered off and got lost; two, some harm has befallen her in a criminal context, or; three, you have the opportunist abduction.
“Each of those is so unlikely in their own right, in reality. But, actually, what you have to do when you clearly move forward with one hypothesis — that she got lost, even though the family have some very legitimate concerns that it might not be the case — you go ahead with that, while simultaneously taking into account the fact that there could be a criminal element.
“There are lots of parallels in that sense.”
Mr Gamble says that he has been in contact with the family and offered them advice and guidance on how to move forward.
“I have been speaking to the family out in Malaysia. I am not going out at this stage. I think that would only add to the bedlam of a lot of people. One of the lessons from the Madeleine McCann case is that when people rush to help, that creates a level of chaos, which is the last thing the family need.
“I have been providing what I see as the common sense advice on the basis of experience to the family.
“But they are quite rightly being led by the Malaysian police, who have significant resources and experience and who are now being supported by a number of different agencies.
“I am providing moral support and reassurance around what I think should and should not happen. My advice to them has been to take the lead of the authorities, use the embassy and the Irish consulate to ensure you are getting access to all the resources that are needed and really prompting them about looking after themselves.
“What you see in these cases is that families are thrown into a scenario that they never even contemplated facing.
“It’s bad enough if your child goes missing, but to go missing in a strange place, which is so different and dangerous, that’s hard. They are having to manage their anxiety around that for prolonged periods.” Mr Gamble says that hope is still alive that the teenager will be found. “There is still hope. Until we know, we don’t know. So, in the ‘missing’ hypotheses and how long can a healthy adult go without food and water, you are looking at 10 or 11 days.
“With a child, we are in unknown, uncharted territory at this stage.
“But there is still every reason for hope. And I think that, at the 11th hour in the ‘missing’ scenario, if she is, in fact, trapped, we need to throw the kitchen sink at it.
“We need to ensure that everything possible that can be done is done. We need to incentivise and call for more people locally to support the searches and go back over the ground that has been covered to make sure that nothing has been missed,” he adds.
Though the youngster’s disappearance has been classified as a missing person case for now, police have yet to rule out other angles, including abduction.
Her parents have ceaselessly maintained that she was abducted from her room. Police say there is no evidence that this is the case.
The police have not ruled out foul play in the disappearance and have so far questioned 20 people and believe at this stage she remains close to the resort.
Fingerprints found on the windowsill of Nora’s bedroom were being analysed, as was footage from the single CCTV camera installed at the resort’s registration counter. There is no security guard on duty at the resort at any time.
Earlier in the week Nora’s distraught aunt, Eadaoin Agnew, issued a heartfelt statement, saying: “We need to do everything we can to bring her home.”
“Nora is still missing and she is very vulnerable,” she said. “We need to do everything we can to bring her home. We are completely overwhelmed by the support we have received from all over the world.
“This is extremely traumatic for the whole family.
“We ask everyone to keep Nora in their thoughts.”
When people rush to help that creates a level of chaos, which is the last thing needed