The late mother of Wipawadi Vannachai, who has been praised for her heroic rescues of Thais trapped in the war zone in Israel, was suffering with terminal cancer but insisted that her daughter stay in Israel to help Thai workers, instead of returning to Thailand to be at her bedside.

Wipawadi said that this was the reason she was not with her mother when she passed.

Speaking at her mother’s funeral in Nong Bua Lamphu province, Wipawadi, known to her friends as “Jam”, said she is proud of her mother, who thought of others before herself.

“When my mother’s condition deteriorated, I wanted to come home to be with her, but she told me that it was not necessary.”

She was emphatic that her daughter stay in Israel to help Thais in need of her assistance. “She said she was gravely ill and was not going to survive the cancer, so I should remain in Israel,” she said. Jam now expects to remain in Thailand until December, before returning to Israel to visit her three children.

Wipawadi and another Thai woman drove through the battle zone to help Thais who found themselves trapped amid the ongoing fighting.

When the fighting broke out earlier this month, a large number of Thais, who had previously used her legal services, began contacting her via messages and telephone, asking for her help.

Meanwhile Bunhom Budmor, mother of a Thai worker, identified only as “Ono”, said in Khon Kaen province that she must thank Wipawadi for her heroic rescue and the help she provided for her son.

“It is right to call Jam a heroine, because she helped my son, who was shot in the leg, and other Thai people who have been able to get home safely,” she said.

What Wipawadi has done is so great that words cannot describe it. “Without her help, I do not know when or if my son would have returned home,” she said.

Her son is now receiving medical treatment in hospital. When he recovers, she plans to go to Nong Bua Lamphu to meet Wipawadi to thank her in person.