IT IS every parent's worst nightmare – your child going missing. It's unthinkable and unfathomable and makes me feel sick even pondering it.
For 15-year-old Nora Quoirin's parents, that nightmare is a horrible, surreal, sickening reality.
It was difficult not to weep hearing her mum's voice over a loud speaker saying "Nora, darling. Nora, I love you. Mum is here" across the dense jungle as the desperate search for the teenager continued in the Malaysian jungle.
The London schoolgirl, who has learning difficulties, the brain defect holoprosencephaly and is very vulnerable, vanished on the first day of her family holiday at the Dusun Resort in Malaysia.
Nora had arrived on Saturday August 3 for a two-week stay with her mother Meabh, French-born father Sebastian and two other siblings. One week on from the last time she saw her daughter, a devastated Meabh, originally from Belfast, said that the family "must remain hopeful".
In a heartbreaking and gut-wrenching appeal on Saturday, Meabh thanked the hundreds of volunteers who were searching day and night for her little girl and tearfully pleaded with them not to stop.
Nora is believed to have climbed out of her window at the family's eco-resort cottage before 8am on Sunday August 4 and vanished. Her family maintain that Nora has been abducted as she "never goes anywhere by herself".
What must be going through her mother's head as she awaits news of her daughter, lost in a strange and alien place, terribly vulnerable and unable to get to her for help. It's the kind of scenario parents go to in the darkest recesses of our minds.
In a statement released at the weekend, Nora's family painted a picture of their precious girl which makes the search all the more heartbreaking:
"Nora is a very special person. She is fun, funny, and extremely loving. With her family, she is very affectionate – family is her whole world and she loves to play games, like Cat Bingo, with us.
"She likes to tell us silly jokes and wear clever, colourful t-shirts. She is not like other teenagers. She is not independent and does not go anywhere alone.
"Nora was born with Holoprosencephaly; this means that she has a smaller brain. All her life she has spent a lot of time in hospital. When she was born, she needed operations to help her breathing. She has specialists that monitor her growth, her physical abilities and her strength, and especially her mental capacity.
"Nora has always needed dedicated specialist educational provision, and now attends a school for children and young people with learning and communication difficulties.
"Nora is very sensitive. Outside the family, Nora is very shy and can be quite anxious. Every night, her special time is for cuddles and a night-time story with her mum. And she was extremely excited about the family holiday in Malaysia."
On Sunday, police in Malaysia said that they were scaling back their search for Nora. More than 300 search and rescue personnel including elite troops using thermal imaging equipment, helicopters and drones have been desperately trying to find the schoolgirl.
As parents who are touched deeply by this family's plight, it is hard not to feel helpless. At the weekend, I spoke to the detective who worked on the Madeleine McCann case. He is liaising closely with Nora's family. He says that the family are being bolstered somewhat during their nightmare by good thoughts, prayers and moral support from people throughout the world.
Let's keep that going and send all positive thoughts to this poor family who are navigating the worst days of their lives – and let's hope and pray that this story has a happy ending.
