Valentin Cebron
Udon Thani (north-eastern Thailand)
Published on October 19, 2024 at 12:34 p.m. / Modified on October 19, 2024 at 12:35.
The crowing of chickens hanging around in the garden and the mooing of the neighbor’s cow intermingle with the high volume of a crackling television. With his eyes fixed on the small screen, a man with a frail body is lying on a hammock suspended from the beams of the family house. “He watches the news morning, noon and evening,” sighs Wiwwaeo Sriaoun, smiling tenderly in the direction of her husband, Tom. At the Sriaoun family, from Ban Kut Yang, a small, peaceful village in the middle of Udon Thani, a rural province in northeastern Thailand where the United States set up a military base during the Cold War, the TV is playing on repeat. ; we are waiting for the good news.
It has already been more than a year since the family lost contact with the eldest son, Watchara, who will soon celebrate his 33rd birthday. He is one of six Thai hostages held in Gaza, relentlessly shelled by the Israeli army. He had worked as an agricultural employee for three years in Israel in the decimated kibbutz of Nir Oz, where a quarter of the 400 residents were murdered or kidnapped on October 7, 2023 by Hamas members. For his parents, this endless wait and, above all, the uncertainty became unbearable. “How does he survive? What does he eat? Where does he sleep? asks Wiwwaeo Sriaoun, squatting in a hut, sheltered from the heat, in front of her home. And 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.” October 7 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 absences, sometimes loses his mind, explains his wife, but if there is one thing he does not forget, it is the captivity of his son.
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