Woman flies to China to fetch mum, eight months after she went missing

By Natthawat Laping 
The Nation

 

 

A 35-year-old Chiang Rai woman has been tearfully reunited with her 59-year-old mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and depression, after she went missing for eight months.
 

The woman was found by police this week as she wandered on the R3A Highway in Kunming City in the southwest China province of Yunnan.

Suchada Ajor tearfully embraced her mother, Kaewmanee Ajor, as they finally saw each other again at the local hospital on Thursday, the day after Thai Immigration Police had arranged for Suchada to fly to China from Chiang Rai to fetch her. 

 

 

Kaewmanee had reportedly travelled on foot on the highway which links Chiang Rai to Laos and China’s Kunming City after her disappearance from home in Muang Chiang Rai, Immigration Bureau chief Pol Lt-General Surachet Hakpal said. 

 

Suchada had filed a missing person complaint with Muang Chiang Rai police eight months ago. 

 

The distance from Chiang Rai to Kunming is about 650 kilometres. When Chinese police found Kaewmanee, she was still carrying her Thai ID card and was unwell, so they contacted the Thai Consulate-General Office in Kunming.

 

Surachet said his agency had helped raise the money for Suchada’s trip, some of which came from police officers chipping in with donations of their own. This was done for humanitarian reasons he added, because Suchada works as an minimum wage-earning employee at a golf course and could not have afforded to pay for the flight herself. 

 

He said the Thai Foreign Ministry also helped by issuing passports for both women, while the Chinese Consulate-General Office in Chiang Mai helped with the granting of visas.

 

Immigration 5 Division chief Pol Colonel Pong-anan Klaikleung will welcome the two women and an accompanied official upon their return this afternoon to Mae Fah Luang Airport in Chiang Rai.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30364149

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-02-15

The family must have gone through a lot.

Happy to hear the family was reunited.

Sad story, can think of few things worse than losing your faculties ... and at 59 this lady is very young for that to happen. How she managed to travel 650km is incredible?

59 minutes ago, webfact said:

some of which came from police officers chipping in with donations of their own.

Nice to read a report, which includes the good side of some of the police, rather than the bad things regularly reported, tarring them all with the same brush.

15 minutes ago, Thaiwrath said:

Nice to read a report, which includes the good side of some of the police, rather than the bad things regularly reported, tarring them all with the same brush.

Agree:

I had my passport stolen about 30 years ago, together with every cent I had. The Police chipped in, from their own pockets, to organise a "Tuk Tuk" to get me to my embassy.... It would have been a VERY long walk otherwise. They most certainly are not all bad.

It's so nice to hear news about people helping people for a change! Hats off to the officials who went out of their way to solve the problem, way to go!

How did she manage basic things like food and hygiene on her journey, she must have had help. 

You have no idea about Alzheimer's do you?

My friends wife had the disease, unfortunately he had a heart attack and died,. She simply starved to death. They forget everything. food, water..wild pigs got to them both before the police or anyone else. Not a pleasant outcome.