Saudah: Tsunami survivor holds on to hope for missing son after 20 years

In front of Saudah’s house on Indonesia’s Sumatra island lie two damaged coast guard ships, washed ashore by a tsunami 20 years ago and a daily reminder that her youngest son has yet to come home.

Saudah, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, believes Muhammad Siddiq, who was six when the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami struck on Dec. 26, 2004, is still alive and has not given up hope that he might one day return.

More than half the dead were in Aceh, the province on Sumatra’s northern tip where Saudah and her family live.

Now 64, Saudah can still remember the rumbling of the earth and her neighbours running out of their homes in panic. She remembers holding on to Siddiq, shouting at her seven other children to run to the mosque.

“I did not run. I laid down holding Siddiq tight and I thought it was just a wind. I prayed to God and asked Him: ‘What is happening?'” Saudah recalled, her voice trembling.

“Then I came back to my house when suddenly I saw the wave approaching like a snake,” she said.

Holding Siddiq, she ran. She only let him go when they reached the mosque, but by then the giant wave had caught up with them. They were swept away by the water and separated.

In the aftermath, Saudah was reunited with only six of her children – Siddiq and one of her daughters were never found.

The daughter is thought to have been buried in a mass grave. Some survivors told the family they saw Siddiq among the 500,000 who were displaced in the disaster, and Saudah’s husband says Siddiq has appeared in his dreams, saying he is alive.

The family is holding on to that hope, praying Siddiq will find his way to their new house, where their old house once stood.

“We keep searching for him, and I always post his picture on social media,” said Saudah’s 42-year-old son, Femi Malisa.

“If he is still alive, I wish for him to come home.”