What happened to Nora Quoirin?

London schoolgirl Nora Quoirin probably died from internal bleeding caused by prolonged hunger and stress after disappearing during a holiday in Malaysia, according to an autopsy report.

The 15-year-old’s body was discovered on Tuesday beside a stream about 1.6 miles from the jungle holiday resort where her parents discovered her missing from her bedroom early on 4 August, the BBC reports.

Nora was barefoot and wearing only underwear when she disappeared from the resort in Seremban, 40 miles south of capital Kuala Lumpur, but was naked when she was found dead, reports The Guardian. Her underwear not been found.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Revealing the autopsy results, Negeri Sembilan state police chief Mohamad Mat Yusop said that Nora was believed to have died “two to three days” before she was found, as a result of “internal bleeding from a ruptured ulcer in her intestine, possibly caused by prolonged starvation or stress”.

Malaysian Police had been treating her disappearance as a missing person case, despite her family’s insistence that she could have been abducted.

Speaking to reporters outside the police headquarters in Seremban, Yusop said: "For the time being, there is no element of abduction or kidnapping."

Nora was born with holoprosencephaly, a disorder that affects brain development and limited her speech and coordination. Her condition made her “very vulnerable” and left her struggling to walk, according to her Irish-French parents, Meabh and Sebastien Quoirin.

Speaking before her body was found, the couple said their daughter “never goes anywhere by herself” and wouldn’t have wandered off.

Nora’s disappearance triggered a major search operation involving 350 people including police, the fire department, civil defence staff, volunteers corps, forestry department officials and indigenous guides.

Search crews played a recording of her mother’s voice in the dense forest near where the teenager disappeared, in which the desperate parent said: “Nora, darling, Nora, I love you, Mum is here.”

In a statement released on Wednesday, Nora’s family thanked those involved in the search, and said: “She is the truest, most precious girl and we love her infinitely. The cruelty of her being taken away is unbearable. Our hearts are broken. We will always love our Nora.

“Nora has brought people together, especially from France, Ireland, Britain and Malaysia, united in their love and support for her and her family. She has truly touched the whole world. To all our friends and family at home, we can’t thank you enough for all your love.”