Last Saturday evening (9th February), the nation was shocked when the body of a child was found at an oil palm estate in Pekan, Pahang. The body is believed to be that of 11-year-old Siti Masyitah Ibrahim, who went missing on 30th January.
According to the New Straits Times, the child’s body was reportedly found decapitated with missing organs. However, Pahang police chief Mohd Zakaria Ahmad told Malaysiakini that the body was found intact.
Source: Berita Harian
As the authorities await the full results of the ongoing autopsy, it was recently reported by NST that a Nur Alert (the national urgent response system alerting Malaysians when a child goes missing) was not activated for the 11-year-old girl when she went missing on 30th January. This was due to the fact that Siti Masyitah is undocumented and her parents are both foreigners.
District police chief Superintendent Amran Sidek told the daily,
“The missing victim and her parents do not have identification documents so we could not identify their backgrounds. We only know that they have been living in Pekan for a very long time and the family has settled down here.”
“Since she was reported missing, the police along with villagers have been searching her village and the nearby settlements. We did not activate the Nur Alert or circulate any announcements but did all the necessary to locate the victim, including spreading the news through other resources.”
Source: NST
Harian Metro compiled a chronology of events involving the disappearance of Siti Masyitah, which is as follows;
- Siti Masyitah was reported missing after leaving her home in Kampung Tanjung Medang Hilir, Pekan at 5pm on 30th January.
- According to the girl’s mother, Zaleha Abdullah, the young girl asked her mother for RM1 before riding her bike to a sundry shop.
- A police report was filed at Pekan Police Station on the night of 30th January after she did not return.
- The girl’s bike was found by local villagers a few days later, roughly 2km from her home. Search efforts continued.
- On 9th February, a body was found at an oil palm plantation roughly 3km from the girl’s home. Reports stated the body was decapitated with missing organs.
- The body was sent to Hospital Tengku Ampuan Afzan (HTAA), where an autopsy is expected to be carried out today (11th February).
Siti Masyitah’s parents were able to make a positive identification of the body based on the blue dress she was wearing on the day of her disappearance. Her mother was quoted as saying,
“I prayed for her return…(so) it broke my heart to see her mutilated body yesterday. Who is the heartless person who did this to my child? Why did they kill her? What did she do to deserve such cruelty? What was her sin?”
Stay tuned for more updates on this developing story.
Also read: Nation Shocked as Missing 11yo Girl Found with Internal Organs Removed
