Monday, January 22, 2007

Doubts grow over identity of Cambodia's "jungle woman"

Monday January 22, 2007

OYADAO VILLAGE, Cambodia (AFP) - She sits for hours at a time, staring at the floor or at the throngs of villagers that have mobbed this small shack, her unsmiling face betraying nothing other than occasional fear flashing in her eyes.

Amid growing doubts over the identity of this silent woman who mysteriously emerged from the jungles of northeastern Cambodia, the family caring for her insists she is their daughter Rochom P'ngieng, who disappeared 19 years ago while guarding a water buffalo.

"I dare anyone to wager 10,000 dollars if they think she is not my daughter," challenged Sal Lou, a policeman in this isolated village who said he immediately recognised his child by an old scar when she was brought naked and dirty from the jungle 10 days ago.

The woman was caught nearby as she tried to steal food from a farmer, hunched over like a monkey and scavenging the ground for pieces of dried rice in the forests of Ratanakkiri province, some 600 kilometers (400 miles) northeast of the capital Phnom Penh.

Since being taken to Oyadao, the woman has tried three times to escape back into the jungle, tearing at the dirty white blouse and patterned skirt her would-be parents dressed her in.

"Over the weekend she acted crazy -- she was scared of the crowds and the journalists trying to take pictures of her," said Rochom Ly, 27-year-old Rochom P'ngieng's younger brother.

Since then, the woman appears to have become more settled under the glare of curious villagers and foreign journalists who have made her an international story.

Scores of people have come to watch her, milling around Sal Lou's ramshackle house, staring silently at the woman as she sleeps, sits squatting against the wall or is spoon-fed by Sal Lou's wife, Rochom Soy.

Many have begun to question Sal Lou's story. How, they ask, could a woman from the jungle have such smooth hands or soft feet. If she had been truly wild, why are her fingernails neatly trimmed and her hair not a matted tangle, they say.

Mysterious scars around her wrist appear to be the result of being bound for long periods of time, further adding to the questions many have over the woman's past.

"I am doubtful that she went missing 19 years ago. I came here to see what she looked like, and she looks normal like us," said Dub Thol, who travelled from a neighbouring district to see the woman.

The woman has offered up no clues as to how she spent the past nearly two decades -- uttering unintelligible grunts or gurgles and communicating only her most basic needs with simple gestures.

Sal Lou told AFP that despite not speaking, she has begun to understand his own hill tribe language of Phnong.

"When we talk to her she understands, but she cannot reply to us. This is because she has forgotten the language, she has not spoken it for a long time," he said.

"She follows what we tell her to do. When we tell her to sit, she sits. When we tell her to sleep, she sleeps and when we tell her to stand up, she stands up.

"So, sooner or later, she will know how to speak. From day to day, she has begun to understand."

Sal Lou said he wanted the woman to be taken to Phnom Penh for medical treatment and appealed for funds to do so.

The jungles of Ratanakkiri -- some of the most isolated and wild in Cambodia -- are known to have held hidden groups of hill tribes in the recent past.

In November 2004, 34 people from four hill tribe families emerged from the dense forest where they had fled in 1979 after the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, which they supported.

They had lived in the jungle in total isolation for a quarter of a century, limiting speech for fear of detection and moving at any sight of an unfamiliar footprint or a freshly-cut tree.

No comments: