There have been several cases of enforced disappearance in the southern border provinces, with the latest case being that of Doromae Laelae, 46, in March 2010 in Pattani.  The case of Mayateng Marano, a janitor at Bang Lang village school, Bannang Sata district, Yala, was brought to court after he had been missing for two years, in accordance with Section 61 of the Civil and Commercial Code, and the provincial court declared him to be a missing person.

The last time that Mayateng was with his family was noon on 24 June 2007, when a group of military officers took him away from his house, along with a pickup truck, a pistol and a mobile phone, right in front of all his family members.

He has never returned since, although local military personnel insisted that he had been released.

‘After the court ruled that he was a missing person on 8 Oct 2009, I brought the ruling to the Deputy Provincial Governor of Yala, and he said that [her husband] should fall into the category of affected state officials and [the family] should get 500,000 baht as financial assistance,’ said Somahidoh, the wife of Mayateng.

She had hoped to use this money to pay off her husband’s debt of 780,000 baht, but she was disappointed.

The Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre subcommittee which considers assistance grants to those affected by the southern unrest told her that her husband’s case did not qualify, as it lacked endorsements from the police, military and administrative authorities.

She was further dispirited by the news that the government’s employment programme which had hired her for 4,500 baht a month would finish.

Fortunately, she has occasionally received help from her neighbours, relatives and other wives of the disappeared, as well as military and state officers.

A few days after her husband was declared a missing person, she received 50,000 baht from Lt Gen Kasikorn Kirisri, Commander of the Combined Civilian, Police and Military Force, and another 50,000 baht for the education of her two children from the Bannang Sata District Officer.  27,000 baht was spent to buy half a rai, or 0.4 acre, to grow rubber trees for her children.

She afterwards asked for 30,000 baht from the general to build a toilet.  He gave her that, plus 10,000 baht to buy bicycles for her children to go to school.  A portion of the money was allotted for food, she said.

Some NGOs also gave her 10,000 baht.  Dr Petchdow Tomeena, Director of the 15th Songkhla Mental Health Centre and a daughter of the renowned Muslim politician Den Tomeena, repeatedly visited her and gave her a few thousand baht each time.

‘When I was really penniless, I would call this and that person to ask for money bluntly, as I was really at my wit’s end.  I was overwhelmingly anxious.  Very anxious that the house and property would be seized,’ she said.

She would go by herself to ask for help from those with high rank and status, as she did not want to bother anyone to accompany her.  She had only the faintest idea of how to behave in meeting those people, but she could not care less.

Upon hearing the news that the government scheme which has paid her 4,500 baht a month will be scrapped this September, she went to ask Lt Gen Kasikorn for help.  All that the general could do, however, was to give instructions to his subordinates, because he himself got wind of being transferred to Bangkok.

‘He told me to buy about 3 rai of land to grow rubber trees.  He would pay for the land and the rubber trees.  But so far I have not been able to find the land to buy,’ she said.

Since the disappearance of her husband, she has never stayed at that house.  She goes back there from time to time, but would not stay the night at the solitary farm house, except for one night when she was accompanied by friends and relatives.

Currently, she lives with her father at Kalo village in Raman district, Yala, which is her hometown.  She lives in a new house next to her father’s with her two children.

The new house is so hot and stuffy that she has to always go out.

‘Sometimes I feel very distressed.  Don’t know what to do.  Miss him.  Always miss him.  Sometimes I have to wander around.  I want to go to the forest, the fields.  Don’t want to go to anybody’s house,’ she said.

So distressed, she cannot sleep and has to take sedatives.  She has to see a psychiatrist at Raman District Hospital on a monthly basis.  The doctor instructs her to take the pills regularly.

Teachers at her husband’s school always pressure her on the phone to sell her house and land to pay off the debt her husband owed to the cooperative.

‘I feel distressed every time they call.  And they always call to pressure me.  Now the debt remains the same.  I’ve never paid one baht,’ she said.

Out of her husband’s debt of 780,000 baht, 500,000 is owed to the Teachers’ Cooperative, 100,000 baht to the Savings Bank, 20,000 to the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, with the rest borrowed from local creditors, plus interest of about 10,000.

She earns little more than 100 baht a day from being hired as a rubber tapper.  From this wage, 50 baht is for the eldest child to go to school, and 20-30 baht for the youngest who is in kindergarten.

She herself has to depend on the circumstances; if one day there is food, she eats, if not, she starves.  Sometimes she is given some food by her father or elder sister.  She and her children have survived largely thanks to the help of relatives and neighbours.

‘I’ve always thought what job I would do.  I thought of opening a grocery shop, but there were many grocery shops already.  I thought of selling things because when my husband was alive, I had a food and candy stall at the school.  And I thought that I was quite capable of being a seller.  But now I have no idea how to start.  Still distressed.  And it would need money to start,’ she said.

The image of Mayateng being taken away by the military three years ago is also impressed on the memory of her children as well, as they were there at the scene.

Her eldest son, Ruslan, 15, studies Grade 8 at a private Islamic school which also teaches general subjects.  The other son, Imron, 5, is at kindergarten.

‘Since the disappearance of my husband, my sons have always been sick.  The eldest son has been depressive and lifeless, sometimes even missing school for several days.  I asked him why he was sick.  He said he missed his father,’ she said.

Once, in the run-up to Father’s Day, 5 Dec, she saw her youngest son running home from school in tears.  He told her that his teacher had asked pupils to raise their hands if they had no father.  He did not raise his hand, but ran home.

‘The teacher should not have asked the pupils that.  He could never have known how fatherless children would feel when asked that,’ she said.