A California family is desperately working to find a loved one who disappeared in Central America last month, KTLA-TV reports.
Relatives say 29-year-old Nancy Ng vanished on October 19 at a yoga retreat by Lake Atitlán in Guatemala.
“The last two weeks have been a living hell because when we first got the news that she was missing, we just had so many questions,” Nicky Ng, Nancy’s sister, told the television station. “What happened? Where is she now? Is there a chance she’s alive? We didn’t know anything.”
Nancy is from Monterey Park, California, east of Los Angeles. She flew out on October 14, and just a few days into the vacation, the retreat organizer contacted Nancy’s father to say she could not be found.
This was the second time that Nancy attended the yoga retreat at the lake, a popular tourist area.
Complicating the search is that people who might have been with Nancy around the time she vanished have not been very forthcoming.
“Our search efforts have been hampered by insufficient information regarding the exact circumstances and location of Nancy’s disappearance due to the failure of key witnesses (many of whom have returned to the United States in the past week) to step forward and provide a witness report,” a GoFundMe page launched by the family reads.
Guatemala’s navy stopped searching for Nancy after 72 hours, prompting the family to hire private search teams, which have combed through the area. The family is raising money to help cover the costs of those private search efforts.
Chris Sharpe, co-owner of a helicopter company hired by the family, said the lack of information from witnesses leaves open multiple possibilities about what happened to Nancy.
“It could potentially be a murder or homicide. We don’t know,” Sharpe told NBC News.
Guatemalan authorities are leading the investigation, but the FBI is assisting. The family also has been in touch with the State Department and other government representatives.
Nancy works in the Alhambra Unified School District, where she helps students with disabilities. She is a graduate of California State University, Los Angeles.
Nicky said she has a message for her big sister. “We just really want to find Nancy and bring her home. We want the truth. We want to understand what happened,” Nicky told NBC News.
The family underscored that message in a statement to KTLA-TV, writing: “Time is of the essence, and we are racing against the clock to bring Nancy home. It has been an ongoing nightmare, not knowing what happened to Nancy or if we will ever get her back. All my family wants is to bring our sister/daughter home. Please help us do so.”
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[Feature Photo: Nancy Ng/GoFundMe]
