Relatives thank rescue workers but say they are struggling to understand events

The family of Nora Quoirin have said they hope to have “more answers to our many questions” about the death of their 15-year-old daughter in the Malaysian jungle.

In their first statement since an autopsy concluded Nora probably died as a result of starvation and stress during a week in the jungle, the family said that while the “initial postmortem results have given some information that helps us to understand Nora’s cause of death”, they were not entirely satisfied with the findings so far.

“Our beautiful innocent girl died in extremely complex circumstances and we are hoping that soon we will have more answers to our many questions,” they said. “We are still struggling to understand the events of the last 10 days.”

Nora’s mother and father, Meabh and Sebastien, met the Malaysian deputy prime minister, Wan Azizah, on Friday during which she paid her respects to the family.

“We had the opportunity to thank them for everything that the Malaysian government, police, search and rescue teams, local people and volunteers have done to help us,” the family statement said. “Tragically, as we know, this wasn’t enough to save Nora.”

They emphasised that this was not the end of the case and the criminal and missing persons investigations continue. Investigations in France were also continuing, as is standard procedure in cases involving French citizens. Nora’s mother is Irish and her father French, and the family live in London.

Nora, who had a neurological disorder that limited her speech and coordination, was barefoot and in underwear when she went missing.

A window was found open downstairs in the holiday cottage where she was staying. Her body was eventually discovered unclothed down a deep ravine, 1.2 miles from the resort where she was staying.

Her family insisted she had been abducted because she never went anywhere by herself, but the Malaysian police maintained it was a missing persons case.

Speaking outside the police headquarters in Seremban this week, the Negeri Sembilan police chief, Mohamad Mat Yusop, said there was no evidence of foul play or abduction. He told reporters that the tests showed Nora had died “two to three days ago” from internal bleeding, possibly caused by “prolonged starvation or stress”.

A full postmortem report has not been completed as some test results remain outstanding but her exact cause of death was given by the police as “upper gastrointestinal bleeding due to duodenal ulcer complicated with perforation”.

The family said they would be bringing Nora’s body home.