thedailywhat:

Heartwarming Human Interest Story of the Day: A 15-year-old girl from Indonesia was reunited with her family seven years after she was swept away from her mothers arms by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The girl, who said she was “adopted” by a stranger and given the name “Wati,” has spent the better part of the last decade begging in the streets until late at night.

She was eventually kicked out and told to go find her parents “in Meulaboh.”

After arriving in the Aceh province town this week, Wati asked after the only relative whose name she could remember: Her grandfather Ibrahim. A local pedicab driver brought her to a man by that name, who called her parents.

“When I saw my mother, I knew it was her,” said the teen, whose real name is Meri Yuranda. “I just knew.”

Though reunions of this sort are rare — tens of thousands remain missing — and similar stories have proven untrue, Meri’s mother, Yusniar binti Ibrahim Nur told AP that a scar and a mole and certain facial features indicate that this is in fact her daughter.

Either way, an abused beggar girl now has a home and loving family, and that’s really all that matters.

[ap / photo: thestar.]