Malaysia uses recording of mother’s voice in hunt for missing teen

SEREMBAN: Malaysian officials played recordings of a Franco-irish teen’s mother over megaphones on Thursday on the fifth day of a desperate hunt for the schoolgirl who disappeared from a rainforest resort, police said.

Tribespeople specialised in tracking also joined the hundredsstrong search team as they trekked through the jungle shouting the name of Nora Quoirin, who has learning difficulties and went missing on Sunday while on a family holiday.

The 15-year-old disappeared from her room the day after checking into the resort with her Londonbased family. They believe she was abducted, but police have classified it as a missing person case.

The search team used a recording of the girl’s mother calling her name in the hope that a familiar voice might draw out the timid youngster if she is in the jungle.

“This morning when we went out, we played the recording using loudhailers,” Mohamad Mat Yusop, police chief of southern Negeri Sembilan state, told reporters.

Voices of other family members had also been recorded and would be used, he said. Police say they believe the girl is still in the area of jungle where the search is focused.

A helicopter with thermal imaging equipment is being deployed, joining the 267 people, divers, drones and sniffer dogs already involved in the search. The daughter of a Franco-irish couple went missing from the 12-acre Dusun Resort, about an hour outside Kuala Lumpur and in the foothills of a mountain range and next to a forest reserve.

Her family say it would be extremely unusual for the reserved youngster to have wandered off on her own. While officially treating it as a missing person case, police say they have not ruled out any other possibilities. They have questioned around 20 people and are examining fingerprints found on a window pane in her bedroom.

Her family made an emotional appeal late on Wednesday for support for the search.