When 26-year-old Natthaporn Onkaew headed for Israel two years ago to join thousands of fellow Thai migrants and take a job as a farm worker, his father warned him not to go.
"I asked him: 'Are you sure that you want to go to this dangerous country where there are conflicts all the time?' But he said it was fine," Thawatchai Onkaew said at the small family home in the sleepy northeastern village of Baan Nong Saeng.
His parents have not been able to contact him since Friday and recognised him in a photo on social media of hostages sitting with hands seemingly tied behind their backs. "I want them to release my son ... I'm speechless. It's completely dark," she said. "Help the hostages as soon as possible. This is the only thing I want to tell the government."Natthaporn is the family's sole breadwinner, sending remittances of 30,000-40,000 baht each month to his family in the village in Nakhon Phanom province surrounded by sugarcane plantations and rice fields.He is one of 30,000 Thais working in Israel, mainly in the agricultural sector.
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