FAMILY REUNION
Yanisa Thaweekaew, whose son Supipat Kongkaew has worked on an Israeli avocado farm since last year, said she hadn’t slept in days.
“My son is everything to me. I was worried. He is the only son I have,” she told AFP.
“I cried every day knowing that he lived in the red zone.”
Many of those being repatriated are farm workers from Thailand’s poor northeast who had gone to Israel in search of vastly higher wages.
The mother and wife of Somma Sae-ja – a Thai man who moved to Israel two years ago to work in agriculture – were anxiously awaiting his safe return home after he was shot in the leg.
“I couldn’t sleep last night, I was so excited and worried,” his wife Nantawan Sae-lee, 30, told AFP.
“We don’t have much money so he went to Israel. He is a really good man.”
More than 5,000 Thais are trying to return to the kingdom with diplomats exploring potential sea and overland evacuation options.
Further Thai repatriation flights are due to leave Israel on Sunday and Wednesday next week.
Sawiang Paelin, 69, from Nong Khai, said her son was able to support his entire family by working abroad but was grateful that he was returning.
“No amount of money is more important than a person’s life,” she said.
Source: CNA
