Short Stories for Teachers
Indonesian girl returns home after going missing in 2004 tsunami
By:Nadine Bells
A 15-year-old girl, known as Wati, disappeared on Boxing Day, 2004, after a giant wave hit her village of Ujong Baroh, in West Aceh, Indonesia. The then-8-year-old child was swept out to sea, separated from her mother and siblings.
She was assumed dead.
On Wednesday, almost seven years later, she returned home.
Antara News reports that the teenager was mistaken for a beggar after arriving in a local coffee shop. She told the cafe workers that "she had come [there] by bus from Banda Aceh and was trying to find her way back home but did not know how. She also could not remember any of her parents' or relatives' names except Ibrahim."
Soon after, she was reunited with Ibrahim who identified her by a mole and a familiar scar above her eyebrow.
Wati's entire seven-year saga has not yet been disclosed to the media except that "she had wandered all over the Aceh district in Indonesia."
