This article is from the source 'independent' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/indonesian-girl-raudhatul-jannah-swept-away-by-tsunami-is-reunited-with-family-ten-years-after-being-rescued-by-fisherman-9656382.html

The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 3 Version 4
Indonesian girl Raudhatul Jannah swept away by 2004 tsunami is reunited with family ten years after being rescued by fisherman Raudhatul Jannah: Girl lost in Indian Ocean tsunami reunited with her parents 10 years on
(about 3 hours later)
The parents of an Indonesian girl feared dead after she was swept away by the devastating 2004 tsunami say they have been reunited with their daughter, almost ten years after she vanished. When four-year-old Raudhatul Jannah was swept from her parents’ grasp by the Indian Ocean tsunami on Boxing Day 2004, they believed she was lost to them forever. Ten years on, a chance sighting has led to them being reunited with their daughter.
Raudhatul Jannah was just four-years-old when the Boxing Day tsunami hit swathes of Indonesia and countries in Southeast Asia, taking the lives of some 227, 900 people.   The family lived in Indonesia’s Aceh province, the place closest to the epicentre of the earthquake which sparked the tsunami that killed 230,000 people in 14 countries. As the giant waves raced ashore, engulfing their village in West Aceh, Jamaliah and her husband clung to a floating plank of wood, clasping Jannah and her seven-year-old brother, Arif Pratama Rangkuti, tight.
The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.1, of which the Aceh province was closest to the epicentre. But the two children were washed away by the raging waters, and after a month-long search their parents gave up hope of ever finding them alive. Even so, Jamaliah “prayed to God every night” that they were safe and she would see them again.
Raudhatul and her brother were swept away when huge waves hit their family home in Aceh, Sky News reports. The entire family tried clinging to a piece of wood but her daughter and son slipped into the waters. Raudhatul Jannah (2-L), 14, accompanied by her mother, Jamaliah (L) and her father Septi Rangkuti (R) gather as they reunite after ten years in Banda Aceh This June, Jamaliah’s brother was visiting a village in another district, Aceh Barat Daya, when he saw a young girl walking home from school who bore a striking resemblance to his missing niece. He learnt that she had been caught up in the tsunami and swept to some remote islands south-west of Aceh.
Jamaliah then spent a month searching for their children but to no avail, leading her to assume they had both died in the disaster. The family home was destroyed in the tsunami and they relocated soon after. There, a fisherman had rescued the little girl and taken her back to mainland  Sumatra, the island of which Aceh forms the far north-western tip. He gave her to his mother, who brought up her up and called her Wenni.
Raudhatul Jannah (2-L), 14, accompanied by her mother, Jamaliah (L) and her father Septi Rangkuti (R) gather as they reunite after ten years in Banda Aceh However, in June her brother claimed to have seen a girl bearing a striking resemblance to her long-lost daughter, who was being cared for by a woman in a nearby district. After the tip-off from her brother, Jamaliah and her husband visited the village on Wednesday and were astonished to discover that the girl really was their long-lost daughter. “My heart beat so fast when I saw her,” she told Agence France-Presse yesterday. “I hugged her, and she hugged me back, and [she] felt so comfortable in my arms.”
He discovered the girl had been swept from Aceh in the tsunami to Banyak Island and rescued by a fisherman, who placed her in the care of his mother. Jamaliah said she could not stop the “tears from flowing” during the emotional reunion. “I am so grateful to God for reuniting us with our child after 10 years of being separate. God has given us a miracle. My husband and I are very happy.”
Jamaliah then visited the girl in inland town of Blangpidie in the Aceh Barat Daya district in late June and found she was their daughter. The couple have fresh hope that their son may be alive, too. Their daughter, who is now back in her home town, has told them that the two children were stranded together on Banyak Island. The family plans to travel to the sparsely inhabited island, 25 miles off Sumatra, to look for him. He would now be 17.
“My husband and I are very happy we have found her,” Jamaliah was quoted as saying, describing find her daughter as “a miracle from God”. Meulaboh, where the family lived, was one of the worst hit places in Aceh, with an entire city flattened by the earthquake and tidal waves. The family’s home, along with countless others, was destroyed.
She said she had “no doubt” the girl is her daughter but would take DNA tests to prove this, News Corp Australia reports. The family say they will now resume the search for Raudhatul's brother on Banyak Island in the hope he may too still be alive. Jamaliah told Indonesia’s Metro TV: “I prayed day and night that if this disappeared girl was safe, that we might find her. Even just one  month ago, her father was contacting everyone he knows, and kept saying that ‘my sweet child must be alive’ every day after he came back from work.”
Amid some scepticism about the story, Jamaliah has declared that “if anyone is in doubt, I’m ready for DNA tests”. She also said that she recognised Jannah instantly, despite the passage of time.
In 2011, another Indonesian girl who was swept away during the tsunami was reunited with her parents, seven years on. The girl, then aged eight, had been adopted by another woman, but ended up having to beg on the streets.
Jamaliah said she was optimistic about finding her son. “We will look for him on Banyak, because we believe he is still alive.”