Bangkok, Thailand – The distinctive Buddhist tattoo on the shoulder of the man lying face down on a roadside at the point of Hamas guns confirmed Kanyarat Suriyasri’s worst fears.
“I immediately knew it was my husband,” Kanyarat told Al Jazeera.
Owat Suriyasri, 40, is feared to be among the 14 Thai nationals believed to have been taken from Israel into Gaza by Hamas fighters as captives.
“I just want to appeal to Hamas to release the Thais – they have nothing to do with this. They only left Thailand to work to provide for their families,” Kanyarat said. “They all have children.”
Owat, a father of two teenage boys, moved to Israel to work on a farm.
Like most of the 30,000 Thais working in Israel, mostly in agriculture, Owat hails from Isaan, Thailand’s poorest region.
For families like Owat’s that do not own land, working overseas offers the chance to build a…
