CAMBODIA: Cambodian woman found recently after going missing in the jungle for eighteen years wants to return to the forest according to police

A Cambodian woman who went missing in the jungle for eighteen years, and was found just last week, is struggling to adapt to a new life in her village and, according to police, wants to return to the forest. Ro Cham H'pnhieng went missing as an eight-year-old along with her cousin when they were sent to tend cows near the border with Vietnam. Villagers believed the girls had been eaten by wild animals until a girl was caught last week by a logging team as she was trying to steal some food they had left under a tree. With blackened skin and hair stretching down to her legs, she was unrecognisable, apart from a scar across her back that allowed her father to identify her. After 18 years in the wilderness, police said she was able to say only three words: father, mother and stomach ache. Mao Sun, a district police chief in the jungle-clad northeastern province of Rattanakiri where the girl's family live said that the woman preferred to crawl rather than walk like a human and she kept crying and wanting to go back to the jungle. He said that when she is thirsty or hungry she points at her mouth. Villagers from the Phnong ethnic hill tribe minority believe the girl is still possessed by evil spirits of the forest. They have brought in Buddhist monks to bless her and set up a round-the-clock watch on the family hut. In December 2004, four families in the same province, which was criss-crossed by the paths of the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War, emerged from 25 years in the jungle after fleeing the 1979 Vietnamese invasion that ousted the Khmer Rouge.

ITN Source | January 20, 2007

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