Jungle Woman Found in Cambodia Believed To Be Girl Missing For 19 Years

A woman who vanished 19 years ago in the jungles of Cambodia is no longer missing.

The woman is thought to be Rochom Pngieng, who went missing at age 8 and would now be 27. She was found by villagers whose food had been disappearing. Thinking it may be an animal, or human, they set a trap to capture the thief. What they caught was a naked and thin young woman.

Sal Lou, a police officer of the Phum Un Village, and his wife have stepped up and claimed that the woman is Rochom P'ngieng, their 27-year-old daughter who disappeared into the northeastern Cambodian jungle while herding water buffaloes when she was 8 years old. The family says that she has a scar on her right arm from an accident that occurred before her disappearance.

The family has taken the young woman into their home, nursing her to good health. Their hut has attracted crowds of villagers and media people who are eager to see the monkey-mimicking woman from the jungle. She has no understandable language skills, so she pats her stomach when she's hungry and uses animal grunts to communicate. Some believe she is not speaking because of all the visitors and/or from traumatic events she may have faced in the jungle. Others say her vocabulary and speaking skills have been forgotten from living so long without human contact.

Licadho, a human rights group, thinks that the woman is suffering from trauma after returning to society, and they think she could have been a victim of abuse, maybe from being held captive in a nearby town or country. They think this because the woman has marks on her arms that could have been caused by a restraint such as a rope.

People are wondering how she has survived living in the dangerous jungle for 19 years. There are over 9 million live landmines. How did she not set one off? What did she eat? When the young woman is able to speak again, it is hoped that she will have answers to everyone's questions.

On the other hand, the girl has physical traits that suggest she is not Rochom. This young woman doesn't seem to have been living in the jungle for 19 years. Her palms and the soles of her feet are smooth. She also looks like and has the features of a teenager, not a woman that is 27.

Medical tests are being done to help identify this young woman to see who she really is.