The family of 15-year-old Nora prepare to bring her home

BY RAFI BENADY & TOBY PORTER
toby@slpmedia.co.uk

The family of a 15-year-old girl who died alone in a Malaysian jungle two miles from her parents have thanked police for their support since she disappeared.

Nora Quoirin’s mother and father, from Streatham, who worship at St Bede’s Church, Thornton Road, Clapham Park, also thanked the authorities and volunteers in Asia for looking for their daughter.

Meabh and Sebastien Quoirin said: “We would like to thank the Malaysian authorities for their ongoing support and co-operation with international Governments and police as the criminal investigations continue.”

The Lucie Blackman Trust, which has supported the family since Nora’s disappearance, has been arranging repatriation of Nora’s body.

The Irish embassy has also helped the Quoirin family to prepare documentation for her coffin to be brought back home.

Investigations continue but police chief Datuk Mohamad Mat Yusop said after the post-mortem that Nora had died “two to three days” before from internal
bleeding in her intestine, possibly caused by “prolonged starvation or stress”.

Nora, who went to Garratt Park school in Waldron Road, Earlsfield, also had bruising on her legs but there was “no sign of violence, abduction or kidnapping” and “no evidence of foul play for the time being”.

The exact cause of death given by the police was “upper gastrointestinal bleeding due to duodenal ulcer complicated with perforation”.

The body of the London teenager was found on August 13 down a steep ravine in the jungle, after a 10-day search.

Nora was barefoot and just in underwear when she went missing. Her body was eventually discovered in a stream more than a 1.2 miles from the resort by a team of local hikers.

The area was highly inaccessible and the body had to be winched out by a helicopter before being brought to Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital for the post-mortem.

Her clothes have still not been found. The Irish and French police have said they are satisfied with the work of the local pathology.

Police chief Yusop said: “There is no request from Ireland to do a second post-mortem. In fact, the liaison police officer from France was “very’ satisfied with the pathologist’s work.”

Nora had special needs and vanished from the Dusan resort in Malaysia on Sunday, August 5.

Police in Malaysia used specialist teams, with 250 officers and hundreds of volunteers, to try and find her.

The family, including Nora’s Irish-French parents, and her younger brother and sister, arrived at the resort near Seremban, about 40 miles south of Kuala Lumpur, on August 4.

Her father raised the alarm the following morning when Nora was missing from her bedroom, with the window open.

Her parents said she would need a lot of care, whoever she was with. She could wash and dress herself, but she could not manage buttons, and struggled to wash her hair.

Nora was born with holoprosencephaly – she had a smaller brain.

She needed operations to help her breathing in early life. She always needed dedicated specialist schooling.