The families of Thai laborers held hostage by Hamas yesterday spoke of their fears for their safety, after the Palestinian militant group threatened to execute civilian captives in its war with Israel.
At least 18 Thais have been killed and 11 seized since Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on Saturday.
Hamas dragged off about 150 people as hostages in its attack and has said it would execute them one by one if Israel continues to hit Gaza with airstrikes.
Photo: Reuters
Kanyarat Suriyasri, whose husband Owat Suriyasri is among those taken, spoke of her horror at learning the news.
“When I heard that he was among the 11 hostages taken by Hamas my heart dropped,” she said. “I am waiting to hear some good news.”
Owat, 40, from Si Saket Province in eastern Thailand, is a “very friendly, caring and happy man,” she said.
He moved to Israel in 2021 for improved wages, hoping to build a better house for his wife and two children.
“We have a lot of debts and working abroad pays better than in Thailand,” she said.
She said that if she could see her husband she would tell him: “I’ve missed you, I won’t let you anywhere far away again.”
“I would hug him,” she added.
Wannida Ma-asa’s husband, Anucha Angkaew, an avocado farm worker, was another of those taken hostage.
“I’m devastated. I spoke with him the day when he was kidnapped. I had a video call with him before it happened and we chatted normally,” she said.
Despite Hamas’ bloody threat to kill its captives, Wannida said that she was holding out for the safe return of her husband, who is 28.
“I really hope he survives... I have a 100 percent hope. I am patiently watching the news, waiting to hear some good news,” she said.
Anucha, who has a daughter, moved to Israel in March last year from his home region of Udon Thani, an agricultural area in northeast Thailand.
There are about 30,000 Thais working in Israel, many in the agricultural sector.
Many are laborers from Thailand’s poor rural northeast seeking to benefit from higher wages to build up a nest egg and improve the lives of their families back home.
They have been vulnerable to exploitation. A 2015 Human Rights Watch report found that migrant workers had been housed in inadequate accommodation and paid less than the legal minimum wage.
Many are enduring a painful wait for news of missing relatives.
Jittawan Promsudorn said her family had lost contact with her cousin, Adisak Pengsuwan, who had been working on a farm in the Gaza Strip since March last year.
They have heard nothing from him since the early hours of yesterday morning, she said.
“Earlier he told us that all of his friends were all shot dead, but he was lucky to be able to run away to a bunker,” she said. “He was stuck in a bunker with other 19 Thais, but there was no food or drinkable water. He told us that he wanted to go out to get some food and water, but [was] afraid for his life.”
Adisak is waiting for help from Thai officials, she said.
“Our family, especially his mother, is now distressed and she checks in with me every hour if I hear back from her son,” she said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver