Missing 8 Year Old Girl Wati Thought Dead Swept Away by 2004 Indonesian Tsunami Turns Up 7 Years Later

Call it a Christmas Miracle … the following story is almost beyond believable …

Flash back to 2004 and the Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated Indonesian and left death and destruction in its path. The 8.9 earthquake triggered tsunami killed more than 150,000 people. One of the individuals that was missing, swept away by the waves and thought dead was an 8 year old girl known as Wati. She was only 8 years old when a wall of water crashed through and erased her village of Ujong Baroh in Aceh, one of the hardest hit provinces in Indonesia.

The 8 year-old was clinging with her two siblings to their mother Yusinar as they tried to escape the unforgiving waters. The force of the waves proved too strong and Wati was ripped from her family, consumed by the water, never to been seen again.

Until this week.

Seven years later according to the Indonesian news agency, Antara, Wati found her way back home to her family. Simply amazing. Initially she was thought to be a homeless beggar when she showed up in the nearby city of Meulaboh. However, Wati’s parents were able to confirm her identify by distinguishing features; a small mole and a scar she got above her eyebrow when she was six. One can only imagine what Wati has been doing the last seven years?

Wati could remember only one relative’s name, her grandfather Ibrahim.

She was taken to his house, where she was quickly identified as his missing granddaughter.

He sent for the girl’s mother Yusniar and father Yusuf, who recognized their daughter from a small scar above her eyebrow that she got when she was six years old.

More from CNN on this amazing story.

The now teenage Wati was spotted in a coffee shop near her home in West Aceh, Indonesia.

She said that “she had come [there] by bus from Banda Aceh and was trying to find her way back home but did not know how. She also could not remember any of her parents’ or relatives’ names except Ibrahim,” according to Antara.

She was sitting in silence in the coffee shop, assumed to be a beggar, the news agency reported.

Later that day, Wati and someone she met showed up at a man’s house.

His name? Ibrahim.