Kuala Lumpur - The body of Nora Anne Quoirin, the Irish-French
teen whose disappearance from a Malaysian resort on August 4 prompted
a nationwide search, was found on Tuesday.
Quoirin, who lives in London, was reported missing from her hotel
room by her family ten days ago at Dusun Resort in the south-western
state of Negeri Sembilan, about 80 kilometres from the capital Kuala
Lumpur.
"The family has been brought here to identify the body that was found
earlier today, and the family has confirmed that the body is Nora
Anne," Negeri Sembilan police chief Mohamad Mat Yusop told reporters
outside the forensics department of Seremban hospital.
The body was found in a hilly area in a ravine about 2.5 kilometres
from the resort in the early afternoon and subsequently taken to
Seremban hospital by helicopter.
Mohamed said Quoirin was "not in any clothing" when her body was
discovered by a member of the search and rescue team.
The police chief refused to answer questions about injuries on the
body, saying that it they would have to wait for the result of the
post-mortem before determining whether criminal elements were
involved.
The results of the post-mortem are expected on Wednesday, the police
chief said.
The discovery of Quoirin's body concludes a frantic ten-day search
that involved aboriginal tribe members, local volunteers, hundreds of
firemen and police forces from Malaysia, Ireland, the UK and France.
The discovery comes one day after Quoirin's parents offered a reward
of 50,000 ringgit (12,000 dollars) for information that would lead
police to find her. The money had been donated by an anonymous
Belfast-based businessman, a statement released late Monday said.
The girl's disappearance had baffled investigators, who had initially
struggled to find concrete evidence pointing to her potential
whereabouts despite expanding the search to surrounding creeks and
valleys and deploying sniffer dogs to pick up her scent.
The search for the teen was hampered by the fact that she suffers
from holoprosencephaly, a disorder that causes learning and
developmental disabilities.
Photos of the girl had been circulated on social media as well as in
towns and villages near the resort.
The search and rescue operations also involved playing a recording of
her mother's voice in the dense thickets of the resort in the hopes
that Quoirin would recognize her voice.
Quoirin lived with her family in London but carried dual Irish and
French citizenship.