Indonesia girl back with family after 2004 tsunami

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia—A girl who was swept away in the Indian Ocean tsunami seven years ago has been reunited with her parents.

Fifteen-year-old Wati showed up at a cafe in Meulaboh, a city in Aceh province, earlier this week, saying she’d been forced to work as a beggar and had finally broken free.

She said she was looking for her family.

Wati was led to a man named Ibrahim, her grandfather, who summoned her parents, Yusniar and Yusuf.

The parents said they lost three daughters when the tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations slammed into their tiny village of Ujong Baroh.

The mother, Yusniar, said she recognized Wati by the small scar over her eyebrow and a mole on her hip.