Shamans conducted rituals in the Malaysian jungle Monday in the latest bid to find a missing London teenager, as her family offered a reward for information leading to the girl's return. The family of Nora Quoirin, who went missing in a Malaysia jungle more than a week ago, have offered a £10,000 reward for anyone with information that leads to finding their daughter. “Nora is our first child. She has been vulnerable since the day she was born. She is so precious to us and our hearts are breaking. We are appealing to anyone who has information about Nora to help us find her,” the Franco-Irish family said in a statement released through The Lucie Blackman Trust, a charity that supports the families of British people missing abroad. The reward money was donated anonymously by a Belfast-based businessman as the search for the young girl, who has serious learning difficulties, expanded to some 350 people and has now drafted in officers from Scotland Yard, France, Ireland and Interpol. “The National Crime Agency, the Met Police and the Irish police are working together to help and support the Malaysian authorities relating to Nora Quoirin’s disappearance,” confirmed a spokesperson from the National Crime Agency. Malaysian shaman pray while participating in a search and rescue operation for 15-year-old Nora Credit: FAZRY ISMAIL/EPA-EFE/REX On Monday, a handful of traditional shamans – known locally as "bomoh" – appeared to go into a trance in the jungle as they conducted rituals to help locate her, reports said. Police released a video showing a shaman wearing a white skullcap and several of his assistants performing rituals in the forest. Shaman Khalid Mohamad said he believes the girl was lured by a genie, an invisible spirit believed by Muslims to inhabit the Earth and influence mankind by appearing in the form of humans or animals. He said in the video that the genie was drawn to the girl because she has special needs and had chosen Nora as its step-child. Nora, who has learning difficulties, lives in London Credit: HO / Quoirin Family / AFP Nora vanished from her room early in the hours of Sunday 3 August from her family’s holiday cottage in the dense rainforest surrounding the Dusun Pantai Hill resort in Seremban, a nature reserve 39 miles south of the capital, Kuala Lumpur. Her family have said they have not given up hope and have urged the police to investigate the case as a possible abduction. The Malaysian police set up a hotline over the weekend for anyone who may have information about her whereabouts. The force is still treating the case as one of a missing person but has not ruled out the possibility of a criminal element. Fears for Nora’s safety are growing by the day as the investigation fails to throw up any clues about the circumstances of her disappearance. Search teams, including divers, sniffer dogs, local experts, and an elite special forces unit of the Royal Malaysian Police, is scouring an area of about 1.5 square miles around the treacherous terrain of the resort. Rescue teams have been deployed to find the missing girl Credit: MOHD RASFAN/AFP/Getty Images Hot, humid and rainy conditions have made the area even more perilous for the missing teenager, who was born with holoprosencephaly, a disorder which affects brain development, meaning that she has limited abilities to communicate and also struggles with coordination. Over the weekend, her parents, Meabh and Sebastien Quoirin, a French-Irish couple who have lived in London for 20 years, thanked the teams who had dedicated their time to search for her. "We want to say thank you to each and every one of you. We know you're searching night and day for Nora,” Mrs Quoirin told searchers in a message that was broadcast in the local media. "We see you working so hard and also praying with us and being with us."
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The mother of a Franco-Irish teenager who went missing from a Malaysian rainforest resort fought back tears Saturday as she thanked the hundreds-strong team hunting for the schoolgirl. Nora Quoirin, a 15-year-old with learning difficulties, disappeared Sunday a day after checking into the resort with her London-based family. A team of over 260 people backed by helicopters, drones and sniffer dogs is scouring dense jungle next to the resort in southwestern Malaysia but have not found any trace of the teenager.
China’s claim that “most” inmates have been released from re-education camps in its Xinjiang region has been met with anger and scepticism by the Uighur diaspora which has launched a social media campaign challenging Beijing to prove it. Rights groups and experts say more than one million mostly Muslim ethnic minorities have been rounded up in internment camps in the tightly-controlled northwest region, home to China’s Uighur population. “It’s absolutely not true,” said Guly Mahsut, a Uighur based in Canada.
