Runaway child reunited with family 15 years later

Grownup runaway Um (right) with his happy father after being reunited with his family. (Photo: Missing Persons Centre, Mirror Foundation)

A young man who ran away from home when he was about 10 years old has finally been reunited with his family 15 years later.

Investigators from the Metropolitan Police Bureau's Children and Women Protection Sub-Division and staff from the Mirror Foundation announced at a press conference on Tuesday that they had succeeded in reuniting the 25-year-old man, identified only as "Um", with his father.

Um shows the photo of himself as a child on the Facebook page of the Missing Persons Centre of the Mirror Foundation.

Pol Lt Col Patisart Srimontha, the subdivision's deputy chief, said the Mirror Foundation asked police to help the man track down his family.

Um had only had vague memories of the community he lived in as a child, the officer said. But police and foundation staff finally found clues that helped them find his father in Talad Sri Khema community in Bang Sue district of Bangkok.

Ekkalak Lumchomkhae, head of the missing persons centre of the foundation, said the man sent a message to the inbox of the centre's Facebook page early last month, asking for help finding his family. He had run away from home when he was a young boy andcould not remember the surname of his family.

He called himself Um, and remembered only that his father's name was Boontham and his mother's was Maew. His home was in a community near a rail track with a canal or a river nearby.

Foundation staff then went to meet Um in Prachuap Khiri Khan, where he worked as a hired hand, to seek further details before asking police for help, Mr Ekkalak said.

In a tearful reunion with his father and relatives on Tuesday, Um said that he left home as a child when his friends persuaded him to get on a bus to Sanam Luang. When he reached there, his friends abandoned him and he could not remember the way back home.

He had eked out a living as a beggar in Sanam Luang and on Khao San Road and, when he grew up, as a scavenger. Sometimes he had to ask for food from temples. Four years ago, he went to find work in Hua Hin in Prachuap Khiri Khan and realised how much he missed his family. So he started looking for them.

Um also said that he could not write or read since he left home so young and did not attend school, but he often played online games at internet cafes, so he could use a computer.

He began to look for his family by using Google Voice. He uttered his name and the words ''missing boy'', hoping there might be some news about himself on the internet. And then the Facebook page of the Mirror Foundation came up. And then, he finally found his family.