THE family of missing teenager Nóra Quoirin have said her parents are devastated by the child's disappearance in Malaysia.
Her aunt Éadaoin Agnew revealed the family's anguish as she made an emotional appeal for support as the search for the 15-year-old continued.
Nóra arrived with her family at a rainforest resort southwest of Kuala Lumpur on Saturday and was reported missing the following morning.
Her mother is from Belfast and her father is French and it is understood she travelled on an Irish passport.
"Our family is unable to deal with this at the moment, but we must remain hopeful and we ask everyone to keep Nóra in their thoughts and to continue to support the ongoing search for her," a tearful Ms Agnew said.
"Nóra is still missing and she is very vulnerable and we need to do everything we can to bring her home."
She said that the family was overwhelmed by the support it has received from around the world and thanked all those involved in the search operation.
Heartbreaking statement from the family of Nora Quoirin, the 15 year-old girl with special needs who disappeared from a Malaysian resort on Sunday. A 4 day search by police has thrown up no sign of her. The family believe she was abducted. pic.twitter.com/4hrL7GX5bQ
— Jonathan Head (@pakhead) August 7, 2019
"We're so completely overwhelmed by the support we have received from all over the world," she said.
"This is extremely traumatic for the whole family – Meabh and Sebastian (Nóra’s parents) are understandably devastated and too upset to speak themselves at this time."
Malaysian police were last night still treating the disappearance as a missing persons case but not ruling out the possibility that she may have been kidnapped.
Nóra's family believe she was abducted and questioned the Malaysian authorities' refusal to redesignate her case.
The police have questioned at least 20 people in the search, as more than 200 searchers, dogs and two drones scoured the surrounding thickly-forested area around the resort.
The teenager's French grandfather, Sylvain Quoirin, said Nóra "disappeared in extremely mysterious conditions since she was sleeping in the room with her sister and brother".
He said it would be entirely out of character for Nora to disappear of her own volition or to run away.
Mr Quoirin said he last saw his granddaughter over the Easter holidays, when the family spent a week together in Brittany.
He described Nora as a shy, timid, reserved girl, who was quite fragile and vulnerable.
She can communicate well in both English and French, he said, but added that she has a mild learning difficulty.
"In the morning, the window was open and she had disappeared, whereas after an 18-hour flight and a seven-hour time difference you would sleep soundly and not go for a stroll at night," Mr Quoirin told AFP by phone from Venisy, in north-central France where he is the mayor.
"Everyone went to bed tired, and in the morning Nóra wasn't there."
The family had planned to stay for two weeks, he said, and Nóra was "absolutely not" in the habit of running off.
He said the search effort left him optimistic that she will be found.
Management of the Dusun Resort, where the family were staying, said in a Facebook post that its employees were "extremely distressed and worried" about Nóra's disappearance and were assisting in the search.
Che Zakaria Othman,the local deputy police chief, said a forensic team was analysing fingerprints found in the cottage where the girl disappeared from, but declined to give details.
Amid reports that a window in the teenager's room was found to be open, he said it was a window in a downstairs hall that was left open, and not the one in the bedroom upstairs where the girl was, revealing her siblings were sleeping in another room upstairs.
He declined to say if the window could be opened from the inside, saying the investigation was ongoing.
"Although we classified this case as a missing person but we are not ruling out any possibility... the scale of investigation and the search and rescue is very big for a small place here" before telling a news conference that the investigation includes a possible criminal element.
"We still have hope and believe that she is still in the area. There is no information to show that she has left the area".
Mr Zakaria said a special team from federal police headquarters as well as from forensics and criminal investigation departments were assisting.
Police blocked access to the resort due to the search operation and officers have expanded the search to the riverbed at the foothill of the resort on the assumption that Nóra could have travelled downhill to try to find water.
