London teen missing in Malaysia isn't independent: parents
SEREMBAN, Malaysia (AP) — The parents of a 15-year-old London girl who mysteriously disappeared from a Malaysian resort a week ago said Saturday that she wasn't independent and had difficulty walking, in new details to support their conviction that she was abducted. A massive search operation has been underway for Nora Anne Quoirin, who was discovered missing by her family last Sunday morning from the Dusun eco-resort in southern Negeri Sembilan state. Police believe the teen climbed out through a window in the living room that was left open and was still in the vicinity of the resort. They are treating her as a missing person but do not rule out a possible criminal element in her disappearance. But the parents, Meabh Quoirin, who is Irish, and her French husband, Sebastien, said their daughter was born with holoprosencephaly, a malformation that causes her to have a smaller brain and led to learning and physical disabilities. "All her life she has spent a lot of time in hospital. When she was born, she needed operations to help her (breathe). She has specialists that monitor her growth, her physical abilities and her strength, and especially her mental capacity," they said in a statement released by the Lucie Blackman Trust, a British charity that supports people involved in crises overseas. "She is not like other teenagers. She is not independent and does not go anywhere alone," they said. "Nora likes to walk with her family, but her balance is limited and she struggles with coordination. She has been to Asia, and many European countries before, and has never wandered off or got lost." Other challenges she faces include having limited verbal communication, not being able to write more than a few words, an inability to grasp anything conceptual such as mathematics or managing money, and an inability to make or...
