Much to his family's astonishment, a man returned home to a village in Sangkha district of Surin after 19 years

Disfigured ears and scars all over his body were evidence of what Somsak Somying, 50, went through while working on a fishing trawler for two years before being arrested in Malaysian waters and being imprisoned for several months.

His mother, 72-year-old Iat Somying, cried tears of joy as she recounted the unexpected return of her son last Thursday after she and everyone else in the village had lost hope of ever seeing him again.

"I always missed him and thought he was dead. I regularly performed a merit-making rite for him and prayed he was resting in peace," she said. "Now that he's home, I don't wish for anything else."

A northeastern wrist-binding rite known as bai si su khwan was performed on Tuesday as a way for his family and the other villagers to welcome him home.

In 1999, Mr Somsak, who was 31 at the time, left home with a friend from his village to work at a construction site in Bangkok. The friend later quit the job and left. Mr Somsak did not have any money and couldn't read or write, so he struggled to find his way home.

He moved from one construction site to another in search of work until 2015, when he was transferred to a construction site in Phuket. There he met a new friend who convinced him to pursue a "well-paid" fishing job. A job placement company in Samut Prakan promised to give him 9,000 baht a month if he agreed to give up his ID card, he said.

"Working on a fishing trawler turned out to be a nightmare," said Mr Somsak.

He rarely had a chance to leave the boat, drug use was rife and he suffered violent attacks from people armed with spades, he said. When he finally escaped, he was arrested by Malaysian authorities and jailed for several months before an organisation helped him return to Thailand.

The same job broker in Samut Prakan then sent him to work at a factory for another two months until he was detained in a police raid, he said.

Without any identifying documents the police struggled to reunite him with his family. They were finally able to locate his sister who lives in another district of Surin who helped to bring him home.