Tears of missing Nora’s mother as police say: We don’t know how long she’ll survive
THE mother of missing teenager Nora Quoirin tearfully begged searchers not to give up their hunt yesterday as authorities in Malaysia said they feared for her survival.
Nora’s parents Meabh and Sebastien Quoirin, from London, fear their 15-year-old daughter, who has learning disabilities, was abducted a week ago after the family arrived in a resort in mountainous rain forest.
Visibly exhausted and struggling to contain her emotions, Mrs Quoirin, 45, paid tribute to the rescue teams scouring dense forest around the resort since Nora vanished.
‘We know you’re searching night and day for Nora,’ she said. ‘We see you working so hard and also praying with us and being with us. To be with us here, it means the world to us. We are so grateful for everything that you are doing for us, everyone who is helping.’
Her f amily have previously expressed concerns over Nora’s vulnerability and said she ‘does not go anywhere on her own’.
Police are keeping an open mind on whether Nora simply wandered off or was snatched, but struck a pessimistic note yesterday as the search area was reduced to a radius of two and a half miles.
Mohamad Mat Yusop, police chief of Negeri Sembilan state where the resort is located, said: ‘We are very worried about [her] welfare and we don’t know how long [she] can survive.’ Police also said they were looking into people with criminal backgrounds in the area and had searched the homes of hotel staff.
But they admitted there has been no breakthrough or concrete clues in the search for Nora, who was discovered missing from the Dusun eco-resort by her father last Sunday morning with a downstairs window wide open.
Mr Quoirin, 47, and his wife, an Irish-French couple who have lived in South London for 20 years, say Nora – born with a brain defect called holoprosencephaly – needs help in every aspect of daily care.
Earlier, the family put out a statement insisting Nora was ‘not independent and does not go anywhere alone’ after suggestions from police that she may have climbed out of the window of her resort room and wandered out into the jungle.
Teams of officers and volunteers have searched thick jungle around the resort, where recordings have been played on loudspeakers of her mother saying: ‘Nora darling. I love you. Mum is here.’
The search for Nora was continuing in humid 34C temperatures yesterday at the start of the Hari Raya Haji festival, the Malaysian name for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.
Nora, who holds an Irish passport, has visited Asia and countries in Europe before but has never wandered off alone, her parents say.
Her disappearance came on the family’s first night at the resort, which is two hours’ drive from the capital Kuala Lumpur.
Mediums from the superstitious local community have offered help amid mounting rumours in villages that Nora has been snatched by spirits known as the ‘orang bunian’.