Skip to main content

"I Came Out And Danced": Thai Woman After Daughter Freed By Hamas

When Natthawaree Mulkan's mother saw that her daughter was among the Thai hostages released by Hamas, she was so happy she danced with her 8-year-old granddaughter outside their home in northeastern Thailand.

"I was elated ... I came out and danced," Bunyarin Srijan, 56, said pointing to her patio.

Natthawaree, a mother of two, was one of 10 Thai hostages freed by Hamas during the first truce of a seven-week-old war that started with the Palestinian group's Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel.

She was the only Thai female kidnapped.

Her mother lost touch with her after the attack and then stopped following reports, dreading bad news.

"During that hopeless period I didn't watch the news for half a month," Bunyarin recounts alone in her living room.

"I was afraid of seeing my daughter lying dead."

Some 30,000 Thai labourers, mainly from the country's impoverished northeast, work in the Israeli agriculture sector, one of its largest groups of migrant workers.

Natthawaree is seen in a photograph from the Thai foreign ministry in a clinic, smiling with her hands clasped in a traditional 'wai.'

Bunyarin said her daughter had planned to marry her boyfriend, Boonthom Phankhong, who was also kidnapped by Hamas and released on Friday.

"After she's back, I'm going to take her to the temple to observe religious rites," she said, wiping away tears.

Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on Saturday that the government was still trying to secure the release of 20 Thai citizens who remain captive.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/K1x8eNs

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

UK-Born Italian Teen To Become Catholic Church's First Millennial Saint

A London-born Italian teenager who spent his short life spreading the faith online will become the Catholic Church's first millennial saint, after the Vatican attributed to him a second miracle. Carlo Acutis, who died of leukaemia in 2006 aged 15, was beatified four years ago after the Vatican ruled he had miraculously saved another boy's life. He will now become a saint after Pope Francis approved another miraculous act, an intercession on behalf of a young woman in Florence who suffered severe head trauma in July 2022. Carlo was born in London on May 3, 1991, to Italian parents, and moved with them to Milan as a young boy, where he grew up with a huge interest in computers. "He was considered a computer genius... But what did he do? He didn't use these media to chat and have fun," his mother Antonia Salzano said in an interview with Vatican News at the time of his 2020 beatification. Instead, "his zeal for the Lord" drove him to make a website on ...

US Has Agreed To Send More Bombs, Warplanes To Israel: Report

The US in recent days authorized the transfer of billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets to Israel, two sources familiar with the effort said on Friday, even as Washington publicly expresses concerns about an anticipated Israeli military offensive in Rafah. The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, said the sources, who confirmed a report in the Washington Post. Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to Israel, its longtime ally. The package comes as Israel faces strong international criticism over its continued bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza and as some members of President Joe Biden's party call for him to cut US military aid. The United States has been rushing air defenses and munitions to Israel, but some Democrats and Arab American groups have criticized the Biden administration's steadfast support of Israel, which they say provides it with a sense of impunity. Bid...

UK In 'Diplomatic Contact' With Syrian Rebels After Bashar Al-Assad's Ouster

Britain's foreign minister said Sunday that London had established diplomatic contact with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group in Syria, which led the offensive that ousted Bashar al-Assad. They remain "a proscribed terrorist organisation, but we can have diplomatic contact and so we do have diplomatic contact, as you would expect", said Foreign Secretary David Lammy. "We want to see a representative government, an inclusive government. We want to see chemical weapons stockpiles secured, and not used, and we want to ensure that there is not continuing violence," he added. "So, for all of those reasons, using all the channels that we have available, and those are diplomatic and of course intelligence-led channels, we seek to deal with HTS where we have to." (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.) from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/ybLIfjx