Nine years ago the Ngogsuk family received the terrifying news. According to a local shaman, they were haunted by a rampaging, flesh-devouring ghost. The family hastily fled their village in rural Ubon Ratchathani. But not all of them. They chose to abandon their 3-year-old daughter.
Blamed for her family’s spiritual misfortune, the girl has remained there ever since, living alone without care from her parents or a legal guardian.
“Nong Kiew,” the abandoned child, has survived on her own with minimal assistance from her neighbors by working miscellaneous jobs in the village for which she receives five-to-ten baht a day to pay for food and school, according to Matichon.
According to those neighbors, Kiew, now 12, refuses to live with them because she’s afraid of being a burden.
While we can enjoy stories of mischievous spirits photobombing (or Photoshopping) themselves into our lives, supernatural superstition is deadly serious business to many. But ditching your 3-year-old girl in a shack out of fear she’s a ghost? That defies explanation.
As the story goes, some villagers died many years ago and a shaman was called in to pinpoint the cause. The deaths, he explained, were caused by a “Pob” ghost in Kiew’s family, according to village chief Banlue Sangchompoo. Pobs are feared for devouring living flesh of humans and animals during the night. After initially abandoning the girl, her parents reportedly returned briefly to enroll her in school before departing from her life forever.
In recent days her story spread as the media learned of her situation.
The local school dean said he’s tried to help by applying for financial aid for the girl but so far there had yet to be any response from the authorities.
Kiew said she’s been saving a portion of her tiny income to fund her future education. She aspires to be a doctor.
Photo: MCOT
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