Family Reunited 10 Years After Tsunami

What unbelievable news to wake up to on a Friday morning. Turns out, there is such a thing as miracles, especially as far as this Indonesian family is concerned.

Many will vividly remember the 26th of December 2004 as a day that brought heartbreaking devastation to hundreds and thousands of families, the world over. As the Indian ocean tsunami wreaked havoc upon everything that it touched, loved ones were instantly separated, many of whom would never come face to face again, thousands of which would be instantly killed. Not so for Jamaliah who has just been reunited with her daughter Raudhatul Jannah after she went missing ten years ago.

As Jannah and her brother who were 4 and 7 respectively at the time were swept away with the enormously destructive tsunami as it hit Aceh, their parents had all but given up hope. That was until June of this year when Jamaliah’s brother was said to have laid eyes on a young teenager walking home from school who struck a nerve with him: she looked strangely similar to their long lost Jannah.
From there he began to investigate and learned that this 14 year old had indeed been struck by the tsunami which carried her from her home in Aceh to a set of remote islands towards in a south-westerly direction. The fact that she survived at all is a miracle, let alone to be reunited with her parents who also had a lucky escape.

As per The Guardian, Jannah was then rescued by a local fisherman who took her back to the mainland where his own mother would welcome Jannah into their home and raise her.

Upon hearing the news, Jamaliah and her husband visited the girl, only to discover that this 14 year old teenager was indeed their little 4 year old darling who went missing all those years ago.

?God has given us a miracle…?My husband and I are very happy… I am so grateful to God for reuniting us with our child after 10 years of being separated…?My heart beat so fast when I saw her. I hugged her and she hugged me back and felt so comfortable in my arms,? Jamaliah told AFP as per The Guardian.

Jannah has since returned home with her birth parents, it’s been reported. As for the whereabouts of her brother, who would now be 17, it’s believed that he too survived the wave but his location remains unknown. Here’s hoping that miracles come in twos, so that the whole family may become whole once again.

Main photo credit: Achwa Nussa/AAP/Sijori