A woman who disappeared in the jungles of northeastern Cambodia as a child has apparently been found after living in the wild for 19 years, police and a man claiming to be her father said on Thursday.

The woman believed to be Rochom P'ngieng, who would now be 27 years old cannot speak any intelligible language, so details of her saga have been difficult to confirm.

"When I saw her, she was naked and walking in a bending-forward position like a monkey... She was bare-bones skinny," said 45-year-old Sal Lou, who says he is her father. "She was shaking and picking up grains of rice from the ground to eat. Her eyes were red like tigers' eyes."

Rochom P'ngieng, then 8 years old, disappeared in 1988 when she was herding buffalo in a remote jungle area, said Chea Bunthoeun, a deputy provincial police chief.

Mao San, police chief of Oyadao district, described the woman found as "half-human and half-animal."

Caught by villagers

She was found this month after a villager noticed that food disappeared from a lunch box he left at a site near his farm, Chea Bunthoeun said.

"He decided to stake out the area and then spotted a naked human being, who looked like a jungle person, sneaking in to steal his rice," he said.

The villager gathered some friends and the group managed to catch the woman.

Since being found, the woman has had difficulty adjusting to normal life, apparently because of her long stay in the wild. Sal Lou said it was virtually impossible to communicate with her because she cannot speak the local Pnong language.

When she is hungry, she pats her stomach as a signal. "If she is not sleeping, she just sits and glances left and right, left and right," he said.

Sal Lou said his family was now closely watching the woman after she took off her clothes Thursday morning and acted as if she was going back into the jungle.