Prince Norodom Ekcharin is the second son of Prince Norodom Yuvaneath and PrincessTea Kim Yin. Prince Norodom Ekcharin was thought to have died as a child in 1976 during the Khmer Rouge regime, but he survived after being secretly brought to Thailand, and later grew up in Sweden and is since 2014 finally reunited with his family.
Personal life
When Norodom Ekcharin was born in 1969 his parents Prince Norodom Yuvaneath, being the oldest son of the late king ofCambodia, Norodom Sihanouk, and his wife Tea Kim Yin was living at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh. Six months later, Yuvaneath, his wife and their three-year-old son Veakchearavouth went for a short time mission in Hong Kong, leaving Ekcharin in the care of his grandparents, with the plan that they soon would return, but after the coup by General Lon Nol they were not permitted to enter the country and Yuvaneath's family fled to Beijing, where they lived until 1980, when Yuvaneath moved his family to Connecticut in the United States, assuming that Ekcharin had died in Phnom Penh in 1976. But during the 1975-1979 turmoil after the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh, Ekcharins relatives in Phnom Penh brought him to a hideout close to a refugee camp in Surin Province, on the Thai/Cambodian Border, from where he later reached Sweden. He grew up in Stockholm, having diffuse memories about his parentage, except that his father was a Prince, which he was instructed to never tell anyone. When growing older, his interest for his roots increased, and he came in contact with his youngest sister, and later the rest of the family, who lived in the United States. His family soon confirmed his identity, the royal court in Phnom Penh appointed him the official status as Prince, and the Chilean royal biographer Julio A Jeldres played a pivotal role in re-establishing connections as well as the update on Ekcharins destiny, which he released in an update of his book The RoyalHouse of Cambodia. After nearly 200 workers passed out in one week at a Cambodian factory supplying the Swedish multinational clothing-retail company H&M, Norodom Ekcharin has on several occasions confronted H&M regarding the difficult working conditions and low salaries for their local textile workers employed in Cambodia, and tried to bring this to public attention through numerous interviews in papers and in the Swedish TV4-documentation Kalla Fakta. Norodom Ekcharin returned to Phnom Penh in 2013, and reunited in 2014 with his family during their visit to Cambodia. Since then, he regularly join the family in ceremonial occasions at the Royal Palace during their visits to Cambodia. Ekcharin has two children:
HRH Norodom Eknatali, daughter born 15th of April 2018
