Sureerat Buanak, 53, hesitated when her ex-husband invited their eight-year-old son Naruedol "Oat" Yuanuwong to come stay with him and his new partner for one month in Samut Sakhon. During the year, Nong Oat was based in Bangkok with his mother, and she was used to having him around. But since it was summer holidays, it felt like a good time for him to get out.
On the sixth day of her son's stay at his father's, she got news that shook her -- Nong Oat had mysteriously vanished from home.
Fifteen years after the disappearance, it remains unclear how Ms Sureerat's son went missing. The loss has been devastating for both parents. Details about the boy -- what he had been wearing that day, where he might have wandered to -- and a lack of witnesses means police still don't have a strong lead on his case. Ms Sureerat's son would have turned 23 this year.
Her story is one of several missing children cases affecting hundreds of families in Thailand. Many of these parents have turned to NGOs to track down their loved ones.
With Children's Day being celebrated last week, the Mirror Foundation -- the most well-known NGO for assisting in missing persons cases in Thailand -- recently released reports detailing the number of missing children cases recorded by the organisation last year.
Last year, 422 missing children were reported, 125 of whom were boys and 297 girls.
Photo: 123RF
"Most of the cases reported have already been resolved, but 25 families from last year still have not found their children," said Eaklak Loomchomkhae, chief of the Mirror Foundation's Missing Persons Information Centre. "The numbers we have shared are only those that our foundation has documented."
According to Mr Eaklak, real missing children figures per year are most likely "in the thousands."
Statistics for missing children have declined steadily over recent years. In 2016, 439 cases were reported -- a slight drop from this year -- and in 2015, a notably higher 601 cases were recorded.
Despite these figures, Mr Eaklak says these improvements cannot be called significant.
Ms Sureerat is now remarried and based in Samut Sakhon. She is a regular participant in the Mirror Foundation's efforts to raise awareness about missing children cases in Thailand.
She says the cases should not be viewed only in numbers, but as real struggles affecting regular families.
"No one will ever know what having a loved one disappear feels like unless it happens to them," Ms Sureerat said. "At least if I knew whether or not my son has passed on, I would be able to cope with the grief eventually.
"Deep down, I believe he is still with us, but it is a different level of pain to constantly have to wonder whether my son is dead or alive -- so much more so after 15 years of suffering."
Ms Sureerat says she feels constant regret over not being able to have done anything.
Nong Oat's father is said to have arrived home at 1pm on the day his son went missing to find his son was nowhere to be seen.
Ms Sureerat was only informed of her son's disappearance at 10pm that day when her ex-husband eventually called her.
"I initially suspected my ex-husband and his new partner were withholding information from me, but for the sake of my son's safety, we all went to report to the police at around 4am together the following day," Ms Sureerat said. "The local police, however, weren't of much help, and were extremely insensitive about the situation."
According to her, district police in Krathum Baen, Samut Sakhon -- where Nong Oat reportedly vanished -- told her and her ex-husband they would "look into the case."
At one of her several visits to the police station, Ms Sureerat recalls one officer asking her if she realised how many missing children cases they were dealing with at once, pointing to a tall stack of reports.
"When the police said things like this, it made me lose complete faith in them," Ms Sureerat said. "Whenever new police officers came in after their scheduled rotations, they would always ask me to come by the office and ask for my son's information again, but the outcome always remained the same."
She recalls an instance of one of the officers once misplacing her missing person report after a new squad was assigned to the case. She adds that instances like these led her to stop relying on the local police force.
Instead, she sought assistance from NGOs, such as the Mirror Foundation.
Ms Sureerat says she has also got help from some divisions of the Royal Thai Police (RTP) with assistance from the Mirror Foundation -- namely, the RTP's Criminal Records Division.
The Mirror Foundation has helped coordinate efforts on missing children cases with police since the Missing Persons Information Centre was founded in 2013, 12 years after the foundation was formed.
Criminal Records Division superintendent Pol Col Chaiwat Burana says the division makes sketches of missing children as they age. He has been working with the foundation for six years.
According to Pol Col Chaiwat, the sketches are a necessary part of the process, especially for those under 18, whose faces can change significantly around every two years, requiring re-sketches.
For individuals over 18, re-sketches will be made every five years.
The sketches have a 70% accuracy rate, said Pol Chaiwat.
growing problem: Photographs and sketches of missing children Nong Oat, right, and Nong Ten, far right. Photos: Supplied/ The Mirror Foundation
"Although our main duty is sketching pictures of criminals, we also draw sketches of lost children for the Mirror Foundation's cases," he said, adding the operations are conducted alongside efforts conducted by the RTP's Missing Persons Management Centre.
Founded in 2011, the Missing Persons Management Centre collects information about missing persons from police stations across the country. The centre specifies that officers must accept reports from all citizens without exception.
Pol Col Chaiwat said the Criminal Records Division has re-sketched seven portraits of missing children.
"I believe the issue of missing children starts with the family," he said. "Some children, especially younger ones and teenagers, may be facing tough family situations, such as their parents getting divorced, dealing with step-parents or being forced to stay with family members who have molested or raped them."
The Mirror Foundation reports that of the 422 missing children cases reported last year, 353 involved children running away from home.
Ms Sureerat denied her divorce had "any effect" on her son's relationship to her ex-husband.
"[Nong Oat] was only eight at the time [of the divorce], and he did not know we went our separate ways," she said. "We told him that his father was going to work away from home so he wouldn't be able to stay with us all the time.
"He was a sweet child, and we had a great relationship, so I am positive there was no reason for him not to return."
She added that she had a peaceful relationship with her ex-husband.
Kornsiri Dankueakun, a mother from Samut Sakhon's Krathum Baen district, also sought assistance from the Mirror Foundation when her son Chaiyapas, or "Nong Ten", went missing 11 years ago.
The youngest of Ms Kornsiri's four children, Nong Ten was 11 when he went missing in December 2006. She says he was set to visit his father who lived about 9km away in Om Noi, Samut Sakhon.
"We had moved to Krathum Baen for about a year while my husband stayed in Om Noi to work," Ms Kornsiri said. "Nong Ten normally took a songtaew there, where he would regularly stay with his father on the weekends."
She says her son disappeared on the way to her husband's house, alongside another boy named "Nong Lap".
Afterwards, Ms Kornsiri and Nong Lap's mother faced the media on several counts to publicise the case. However, Ms Kornsiri says Nong Lap's mother eventually become unreachable, retreating from the public eye.
"Relatives [of Nong Lap's mother] would not tell me what happened to her, but I heard she fell into some superstitions and may have discontinued a public search for her son," she said.
Widowed for 10 years, Ms Kornsiri's husband passed away in 2007 due to peptic ulcer disease. Despite previously being quite healthy, he had gradually succumbed to a stress-induced >> >> condition stemming from guilt brought on by their son's disappearance.
Gone without a trace: Kornsiri Dankueakun's son Chaiyapas, or 'Nong Ten', disappeared in December 2006 at age 11. He was last known to be en route to visit his father living in Om Noi, Samut Sakhon. photos: Apichart Jinakul
Unlike Ms Sureerat's case, Ms Kornsiri has received several leads on her son's whereabouts.
However, all of them have been false alarms so far.
"Shortly before my husband's death, we received a call from people who said they saw our son in Ratchaburi, playing nearby a bar they were drinking at, but he ran away after they asked if his name was 'Ten,'" she said. "For whatever reason, they called us days after the sighting instead of right after the incident, so we couldn't find him by the time we got there."
She also has travelled as far as Pattaya to follow a lead from the Mirror Foundation.
"A few years ago, we received another lead in the middle of an interview with a reporter, which said my son, all-grown-up, was living without a home nearby our house," Ms Kornsiri said. "I said it was impossible, because he surely would have been able to walk himself back home at this age, but the reporter insisted we give it a try.
"The boy was around the same age as my son would have been, but his overall appearance determined it wasn't him, despite all the testimony and hype," she added.
Despite how draining it is, Ms Kornsiri says she is determined to keep searching for her son.
"I try my best never to turn down interviews or television appearances regarding my son, because I will do everything in my power to let him know I am still looking for him -- more so since his father is no longer with us," she said. "Both domestic and foreign media must help in not only finding my child, but the thousands of missing persons still out there -- any way that they can."
Both Ms Kornsiri and Ms Sureerat appear regularly in the media, and have formed a strong friendship through that.
"I call [Ms Kornsiri] 'Nong Ten's Mom,' and she addresses me the same way, which is something we now share," Ms Sureerat said. "I couldn't bear to talk about my son when I first had to appear in front of the media.
"The reporters quickly picked up on it, so they ended up asking Nong Ten's mother all the questions instead, since she was more mentally strong," she added.
Ms Sureerat occasionally picks up Ms Kornsiri when both of them need to drive into the city.
Now a proud owner of a steakhouse franchise with over 100 venues, alongside a factory behind her house that sells packed meat, Ms Sureerat said her success was driven by a desire to offer a better life for her son in the hope that he returns one day.
"I hope that, wherever Nong Oat is, he can see that I am now able to buy him a car, and now have a stable business for him to carry on, so he will never have to live a hard life if he comes back," she added, with tears in her eyes.
mother's nature: Nong Ten and Ms Kornsiri, above.