Mystery Child Survivor of the Christmas Tsunami Appears 7 Years Later

This is a VERY interesting story! This young girl washed away and was presumed dead seven years ago. Then in December she appeared on her grandparents doorstep. She had survived and been enslaved .. and she says there are others like her. Tsunami orphans who are forced by some very bad people to beg and steal for them. Kind of Oliver Twist ... but with a Tsunami and an Indonesian setting.

Blobal Post Asia-Pacific News

MEULABOH, Indonesia — The girl who came home hardly resembled the girl who washed away.

Seven years had passed since Meri Yulanda disappeared beneath the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami’s waves. The roughly 160,000 killed by the disaster in Aceh, Indonesia, were long buried. Bodies that couldn’t be identified were laid to rest in mass graves. Meri was believed to be among them.

But in late December, Meri appeared on her grandfather’s stoop. She was alive but not well: her lips were scabby, her back purple with welts, her clothes torn and filthy. A small child when the waves struck, Meri was now 15. She spoke her Acehnese dialect in a strange garble and offered a bizarre account of abduction, enslavement and escape.

The childs parents are still alive and had this to say about the woman - Fatima - who kept their little girl captive for seven years after the Tsunami tragedy and who let her whole family think that she had died a horrid death by drowning -

Meri was eventually dropped off at Ibrahim’s home, a sea-foam green abode rebuilt after the tsunami. That night, she was reintroduced to her parents: Tarmiyus (Ibrahim’s son) and Yusnidar. The couple’s disbelief faded only when they discovered a dark birthmark on her side — identical to their lost daughter’s, they said — and a familiar scar by her eye acquired from a nasty spill at the age of 6.

“In a way, I’m almost grateful for what Fatima did,” Tarmiyus said. “If she was loving towards Meri, she wouldn’t have come home to us. Because she was cruel, Meri came back into our lives.” His wife is less forgiving. “Meri says she can recognize Fatima,” Yusnidar said. “So if I ever find her, I’ll eat her alive.”

God bless Meri's mother - Yusnidar. She's ticked. That's very understandable. I hope they find this Fatima woman who has been keeping these poor children hostage and who is forcing them to steal. If it were my daughter and family that this happened to ... that Fatima woman would be praying for death when I got my hands on her ...

reply to post by FlyersFan


WOW....Such a heart wrenching story...I do hope that they look into this, and try to locate the other children.

What a sad story for everyone involved. It is truely heart breaking to think that there are people in the world that would take advantage of children, especially in a situation such as this.

I would have to agree with you....death is too good for people that would do something like this to an innocent child.

Yeah, you would think the authorities would get involved. Doesn't sound like she was the only child this was done to and why wasn't this all over the news?
I would have to agree with the mom except I'm afraid I would go hunting myself.

This is really interesting. I read the whole story on the link you provided and it seems that there is even more mystery surrounding this girl as blood tests prove while she is the biological child of the father, she is not the biological child of the mother, which raises a lot more questions than it answers.

I think in any given 'disaster' be it natural or man made, there are people who survive who are presumed dead. Some do not remember previous lives, or find themselves enslaved and unable to return home. I think a lot of people take the opportunity to disappear and start afresh.

If this woman Fatima exists they should try to track her down as there may be more children whose families think they died.

However, this may just all be a fabrication to allow the illegitimate child of the father to come and live with him and his wife without stigma in a society that frowns upon it.

reply to post by Eirian


I think I'd want the testing redone in reference to the mom. These tests don't always come out right. At any rate, the mother accepts her and the father is obviously the father. The grandparents are stunned. This is an amazing story. I do hope the authorities look into it. If it's true ... wow!

reply to post by FlyersFan


That's a fascinating story.. I love the mothers response "I'll eat her alive" after the father praises the kidnapper. I think the mother needs to hit the father over the head with a frying pan.

Saddest part of it all though is that there are probably thousands in a similar, or far worse, situation. It reminds me of the stories after the US invasion of Iraq the gangs that would go in, kidnap hundreds of young girls and force them into the sex slave trade.