The family of Anocha Panchoi, a Chiang Mai woman believed abducted by North Korea nearly four decades ago, is renewing their plea to the United Nations and the governments of Thailand, Japan and South Korea, to bring her or her remains back home.
"Kindly help bring her, or her ashes, or remnants of her belongings back to us for the peace of our souls," Ms Anocha's family said.
Banjong Panchoi, 46, a nephew of Ms Anocha, lodged an appeal with Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha at the Chiang Mai provincial hall last Friday calling on him to look into the disappearance of his aunt.
The family believes she was kidnapped by North Korean agents while working in Macao in 1978. She was 23 years old at the time and would be 60 now if still alive.
The Panchoi family has always hoped for her return, and they received a boost 10 years ago when American defector to North Korea, Charles Robert Jenkins, revealed in his book that he had known Ms Anocha while living in Pyongyang.
Mr Jenkins, who deserted a US army post in South Korea and walked across the demilitarised zone into North Korea in 1965, had lived there until he was allowed to leave North Korea in 2004. He wrote the book The Reluctant Communist in which he also mentioned the lives of foreign abductees, including Ms Anocha.
During the past decade, Ms Anocha's family have met at least three Thai foreign ministers and made similar pleas at meetings with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, and representatives of the Japanese and South Korean governments.
Mr Banjong will renew his plea to the UNHRC in Geneva again next Monday. His father Sukham Panchoi, Anocha's elder brother, will not be going with him.
Sukham had championed Ms Anocha's cause until his death from cancer on May 1 at the age of 69, leaving behind the unfinished family task -- seeking the truth about Ms Anocha -- to his son.
After Ms Anocha went missing, Sukham searched for her everywhere but found no clues. Then on Nov 1, 2005, he saw a report on iTV news quoting Mr Jenkins, saying she was in North Korea. The TV item also showed a picture of her.
An army of Thai and foreign journalists descended on his house and Foreign Ministry officials from Bangkok also travelled to Chiang Mai to meet the Panchoi family together with the governor, district chief, police and Special Branch police.
"They held a separate meeting of their own for some 30 minutes before telling us that it was rather unlikely that Anocha was in North Korea. My father and I were just stunned by the way they asked us to live with this and stay quiet," Mr Banjong said.
"Instead of helping raise the issue with North Korea, they just asked us to forget about it. Frankly speaking, our family has been exhausted and disheartened by the Thai government's stance," said Mr Banjong.
Pyongyang denies abducting Ms Anocha, but has admitted kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s. It allowed five of them to return in 2002, claiming the rest had died.
Tomoharu Ebihara, director of the Thailand branch of Takushoku University and executive director of the Pure Heart Foundation, said the issue of Ms Anocha's was not a simple missing person case but one of enforced disappearance by a foreign government.
He said the Thai government has the duty to seek clarification about its citizen.