In the poor and rural northeast of the kingdom, the mother of Watchara Sriaoun, captive in Gaza since October 7, 2023, prays every day for the safe return of her son to the village.
The context
An old man with a frail body, lying on a hammock suspended from the beams of the family home, has his eyes glued to the screen of an old television. The volume, audible from the outside, mixes with the hiccups chickens wandering in the garden and the mooing of the neighbor's cow. “He watches the news morning, noon and evening,” sighs Wiwwaeo Sriaoun, smiling tenderly in the direction of her husband, Tom. At the Sriaoun home, from Ban Kut Yang, a peaceful little village in the middle of Udon Thani, a rural province in the northeast of Thailand where the United States had set up a military base during the Cold War, the TV is playing in loop; we wait for the good news.
Voilà more than a year that the family lost contact with the eldest son, Watcharawho will soon celebrate his 33rd birthday. This is theone of six Thai hostages still held in the abyss of Gazarelentlessly shelled by the Israeli army. He had worked for three years as an agricultural laborer in the decimated kibbutz of Nir Oz, where a quarter of the 400 inhabitants were murdered or kidnapped on October 7, 2023 by Hamas fighters. For his parents, this endless waiting and, above all, the uncertainty have become unbearable. “How does he survive? What does he eat? Where does he sleep?” asks Wiwwaeo, crouching under a hut, sheltered from the heat, in front of her house. After a moment of silence, she wipes her dark circles, looks into space, then continues: “I am so worried about my son, what I feel is terrible.”
“The authorities told us to prepare for the funeral.” False alarm, again.
After hope, radio silence
October 7, 2023 turned the life of this Thai family upside down. In less than a year, the father was hospitalized three times, including once after a stroke. He suffers from absences, sometimes loses his mind, describes his wife, but if there is one thing he does not forget, it is the captivity of his son.
Since the kidnapping of Watchara, these are the roller coaster. Shortly after the massacre, photos of victims circulated. One of them wore a black bracelet. “The same one that Watchara wore in memory of death [en 2016] of King Rama IX, details the mother. So, at first we thought he had been killed.” Before learning that their son was one of the Thai hostages of the Islamist movement. End of November 2023, the release of 23 of themenabled by Bangkok's diplomatic efforts involving neighboring Malaysia (which has ties to Hamas), Qatar, Egypt, Iran and Israel sparked a renewed hope. One hope though quickly dissipated by the repatriation, two months later, of the body of a man from the neighboring village, employed in the same kibbutz of Nir Oz. “That day,” remembers Wiwwaeo Sriaoun, the authorities told us to prepare the funeral of Watchara.” His heart raced, false alarm again.
But lately, there has been radio silence from the Thai authorities, she sighs. The government's latest phone call about the hostages? It's been so long that she doesn't remember. This 53-year-old agricultural worker, with scarred hands from harvesting rubber, knows exactly when she heard Watchara's voice for the last time: “It was on my birthday, September 19 of last year. He said to me: “Mom, you’re getting old,” she imitates her son, laughing. I replied: 'Yes, we're growing old with your father, you better come home quickly and take care of us'.” Busy with the hard work, Watchara only called them on special occasions. The previous time was for the 8th birthday of his daughter, Irada Sriaoun.
Now 9 years old, the girl now lives with her grandparents. In August, umpteenth dramaan illness took away his mother. “At the funeral, it’s Nuu Dee (Editor’s note: the little girl’s nickname, which means “nice girl” in Thai) who delivered the eulogy in front of everyone, recounts her grandmother, placing a hand on the little girl's forehead. She is strong, she holds on because she knows her father is still alive.»
“Some are leaving again because increased tensions are synonymous with better salaries.”
Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the Prime Minister of Thailand.
A forgotten workforce
Watchara and her younger brother joined Israel in 2020 to help their indebted familyin particular due to expensive medical costs to care for their father, who was already ill and unable to work. There, they earned more than double, for equivalent work, than in their native village of Ban Kut Yang, surrounded by rice fields, sugar cane plantations and fields of rubber or cassava. The siblings sent their parents between 550 and 800 euros each month. Before October 7, 2023, 30,000 Thais from poor regions of the kingdom worked on Israeli farms and kibbutzlooking for better salaries.
Her mother didn't know much about Watchara's work growing cabbages in Israel. If it is only working conditions were harsh. He also had changed Israeli employers four timesof which the abuses of some have been documented by local and international NGOs like Human Rights Watch. “His bosses didn't like him very much,” she explains. He had learned Hebrew, helped his Thai brothers negotiate so as not to be exploited.” The tragedy of October 7 highlighted the fate of this forgotten workforcecollateral victim among many others of the war: with 41 dead during the attack, Thailand was one of the foreign countries most bereaved by the attacks. On October 11, one of its nationals based in the kibbutz of Yir'on, near the Lebanese border, died, killed by an anti-tank missile.
In OctoberThai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra called on “all parties concerned to take immediate action to defuse growing tensions in the Middle East,” adding that it was “urgent” to “return to the path of peace and negotiations in view of a cease-fire. Worried, she asked the Thai embassy in Tel Aviv to warn those living in at-risk areas, particularly on the Lebanese border, to take shelter. In vain. On October 31, four more Thai workers were killed by Hezbollah rocket fire in Metula, just outside Lebanon.
A need more than a choice
Watchara's little brother, who worked in a chicken coop in the north of the Jewish state, was repatriated last year. In the next village, Sumek Tianguon also returned at the same time, traumatized by the fall of a shell 50 meters from the field he was plowing. Several of his friends, on the other hand, are still there: “Working in Israel remains a good way to make money. I was able to buy a car, land and build a house,” says this pillar of the family.
His neighbor, Wongwian Nam-in, an elected official from tambon (the municipality), confirms the lack of opportunities. “Some have no choice but to leave abroad – Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Israel – to hope for a better life.” She speaks of a “culture of migrant workers» rooted in the region. This 53-year-old lady, dressed in a national team football jersey, deplores the poverty wages and the government's inability to lift these agricultural workers out of poverty. According to a university study published in 2021, Udon Thani is one of the provinces with the highest rate of migration. A few weeks ago, the councilor adds, a guy from the village even went back to Israel for the second time: “Increased tensions are synonymous with better salaries.”
Watchara's mother also knows villagers who recently returned to Israel there. She tried, in vain, to dissuade them. Invasion of Lebanon, missiles fired by Iran at Israel: the latest events in the Middle East, which she follows closely, hardly reassure her. “Always and more violence,” she comments, tired of this conflict between belligerents for whom she refuses to take sides. But she is convinced of one thing: “Netanyahu doesn't care, hostages. He could agree to a ceasefire, free them and then resume his war, she says, worn out. But he doesn't listen to anything, he plays politics. As long as there is Netanyahu [au pouvoir]peace will not be possible. I’m afraid I’ll never see my son again.”
Protestant Christian Wiwwaeo Sriaoun explains how faith helps her maintain hope. “Without religion, I would be dead. I pray every day for Watchara’s release.” And then, there is his granddaughter, this ray of sunshine in the darkness which keeps him from breaking down. “I comfort her by telling her that, even if her mother is no longer there to give her love, I love her with all my heart.” In the living room, the grandfather dozed off. The TV no longer shows the news, but cartoons that little Nuu Dee hopes to watch again alongside her father, a smiling portrait of whom hangs on the wall.
Qatar announced on November 9 thathe suspended his mediation between Israel and Hamas with a view to a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and a release of the hostages, until the belligerents show “seriousness” in the negotiations.
Around a hundred captives are still in the hands of Hamas, kidnapped during the October 7 massacre around the Gaza Strip. Among them are six Thais who worked in the attacked kibbutzim. The death of Hamas leader Yahyah Sinouar in Khan Younes on October 16 under Israeli fire has so far not allowed a resumption of discussions, contrary to what some had hoped.
