The poor, stateless life of the boy rescued from a Thai cave

Danger is never far from Adul Sam-on, 14, a member of the Wild Boars soccer team trapped in the Tham Luang cave that was recently rescued, according to the New York Times.

At the age of six, Adul and his parents fled a region of Myanmar known for constant war, opium cultivation, and methamphetamine trafficking. His parents brought him to Thailand in hopes that he would receive a full education and have a better life than their poor, illiterate family.

But Adul's biggest escape came on July 10, when he and 11 other members of his soccer team and their young coach were rescued from the Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand after an ordeal that lasted more than two weeks.

For 10 days, Adul and his teammates survived in a complex cave complex as food, flashlights and water ran out. By the time they were discovered by British divers on the night of July 2, the boys and their coach appeared to be nothing but skin and bones.

Adul is a stateless descendant of a branch of the Wa tribe in Myanmar. When British divers discovered the soccer team alive and deep in the cave, it was Adul who spoke to them. Fluent in English, Thai, Burmese, and Chinese, Adul politely told the British divers that the group’s greatest need was food and asked how long they had been in the cave. In images released by Thai Navy SEALs, Adul has a broad smile on his gaunt face.

On July 10, the border town of Mae Sai, where Adul had lived in a church, finally had reason to celebrate as the Wild Boars soccer team’s 18-day ordeal ended. During the three-day rescue mission, Adul and 12 others were safely brought out of the cave by dozens of divers, doctors and support teams.

Three of the stranded boys and their coach, Ekkapol Chantawong, are from a stateless ethnic minority group. They are used to crossing the border into Myanmar one day and returning to Thailand the next to take part in a soccer match.

Adul was an excellent student at Ban Wiang Phan School in Mae Sai. With his academic achievements and athletic ability, he was exempted from tuition and lunch by the school.

After crossing the border into Thailand eight years ago, Adul's parents left him at a Catholic church in Mae Sai and placed him in the care of a pastor and his wife, worried that the poor education in his homeland would put him at risk of being drawn into local guerrillas.

At Ban Wiang Phan school, where 20% of the students are stateless and half are from ethnic minorities, principal Punnawit Thepsurin says that the boy’s statelessness has helped him hone his strength. “Stateless children have a fighting spirit because they really want to excel. Adul is the best of the best,” he said.

According to the UN refugee agency, at least 440,000 stateless people live in Thailand, many of them victims of Myanmar’s long-running ethnic conflict. Human rights groups say the real number could be as high as 3 million in the country of nearly 70 million people, although the Thai government has refused to ratify the UN convention on the protection of refugees.

With few legal protections, stateless workers in Thailand can be a boon for traffickers or labor exploiters. But Wild Boar is a home for stateless children and Thai children alike. Every weekend, the team goes camping in the nearby jungle. Warning outside the caveTham Luang said that the rainy season can turn the cave passages into rivers in just a few hours, but that did not stop the boys from entering.

"The children are at an age where they want to explore and learn new things, so it's understandable that they would go into the cave," said Nopparat Khanthawong, head coach of the Wild Boars team, who did not participate in the trip.

There was initial speculation that Ekkapol could face criminal charges for ignoring warnings to take the boys into the cave, but local officials quickly dismissed this.

"Coach Ek, thank you for taking care of our children and keeping them safe in the dark cave," Adul's parents wrote in a letter to the group and were brought into the cave by SEALs on July 7.

Ekkapol is also a stateless member of the Shan ethnic minority and has experience caring for children. After his parents died in Myanmar from the pandemic, Ekkapol entered a Thai monastery and spent nearly 10 years as a monk, a common choice for orphans with no financial support.

At the temple, Ekkapol was tasked with looking after the younger children, said Patcharadanai Kittisophano, a monk at Phrathat Doi Wao temple.Phrathat Doi Wao iswhere the youth coach is working."In the cave, he taught the children how to meditate to pass the time without stress. That saved their lives," said Mr. Patcharadanai.

Inside the cave, Ekkapol sent a letter out, apologizing to the boys' parents for bringing the group into the cave.

"Ek must have blamed himself. For the sake of the children, he had to overcome his worries to become stronger,"Prayuth Jetiyanukarn, abbot of Prathat Doi Wao temple, said.

Mr. Nopparat, the team's head coach, said that Ekkapol even gave up his food and water to the boys. "He would rather die than lose a single Wild Boar. That's the kind of person he is," said Nopparat.

For Adul's parents, even though their only educated son among five children was in danger, they still advised him to behave well.

"After leaving the cave, you must say thank you to each staff member who participated in the rescue," they wrote in a letter sent to their son from the cave.