The police found 30 new graves at an old, unused Muslim burial ground inside an abandoned detention camp for illegal Rohingya migrants in Southern Thailand on Thursday morning.
The graveyard, located at Ban Chalung village in Hat Yai district, had been unused for nearly 40 years and there had previously been only six old graves, villagers said.
More than 50 Thai police officers have been punished over suspected links to human trafficking networks, the country’s police chief said on Thursday, after the prime minister ordered a probe into the discovery of clandestine detention camps for sea migrants near the Malaysian border.
A labour rights group in Malaysia said Thursday it had received reports of undocumented migrant workers going missing in Malaysia and called on authorities to investigate whether a deadly human-trafficking operation uncovered in neighbouring Thailand was reaching across the border.
Locals told police the 30 new graves had been there for about a year, according to the Bangkok Post.
Officials said the graves were similar to the 26 graves found at a Rohingya detention camp in a forest in Padang Besar sub-district of Songkhla’s Sadao district last week. The area where the graves were found had been used as a large camp that had held Rohingya migrants.
Police said the 30 graves had not yet been opened for examination.
Police also found an old detention camp in a rubber plantation in nearby Ban Khlong Tor in Songkhla’s Rattaphum district on Thursday. They believed the deserted camp functioned as a rest area for Rohingyas being smuggled
from Satun province to Sadao, where they crossed the border to Malaysia.
Police on Thursday also found 13 Rohingya migrants walking along the edge of a forest on Khao Kaew mountain in Padang Besar sub-district and took them in for questioning.
The group said traffickers had abandoned them in the jungle. Earlier they had travelled from Myanmar by sea to Satun with 17 other compatriots. They were told they were walking across the border into Malaysia but their guides suddenly deserted them. The 17 others were found on Wednesday.
Thirty-two bodies, believed to be migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh, were found in shallow graves over the past week in the southern province of Songkhla. Some of the bodies were found at a suspected human trafficking camp hidden deep in the jungle.
‘We have transferred over 50 police officers over this issue because commanders in local areas know who has been involved in what,’ chief of Royal Thai Police General Somyot Poompanmuang told reporters ahead of a meeting in Bangkok to discuss efforts to crack down on the illicit trade, Reuters reported.
‘In the past there were no sincere efforts to solve this problem. This is only something that has happened recently.’
Some Thai officials say human trafficking has been allowed to flourish for years amid indifference and, sometimes, complicity by Thai authorities.
Thai prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has ordered a clean-up of suspected human trafficking camps around the country within 10 days, while UN officials have called for a regional effort to end the illicit trade.
‘This problem comes from abroad and not from us. To solve it we must look to the source because we are merely a transit country,’ he said.
Thousands of illegal migrants, including Rohinghya Muslims from western Myanmar and from Bangladesh, brave dangerous journeys by sea and land to escape religious and ethnic persecution and in search of work abroad.
They are often trafficked through Thailand, a predominantly Buddhist country, and taken into the country’s jungles, where traffickers demand ransoms to release them or smuggle them across the border to mainly Muslim Malaysia.
Sunai Phasuk of Human Rights Watch told Reuters that the latest crackdown was the ‘first effort by the Thai government to leave no stone unturned’ and called for an investigation of military personnel suspected of involvement in human trafficking.
‘We see local politicians and police being investigated and named but what about military personnel? What about officials from forestry departments which have long been alleged to have provided support to human traffickers?’
Thai police have arrested four men – three Thais and a Myanmar national – on suspicion of human trafficking. Arrest warrants have been issued for 14 more people, police said on Thursday.
A Malaysian labour rights group said Thursday it had received reports of undocumented migrant workers going missing in Malaysia and called on authorities to investigate whether a deadly human-trafficking operation uncovered in Thailand was reaching across the border, according to AFP.
The call by Malaysian NGO Tenaganita came as Thai authorities said six more bodies were found near a site along the two countries’ borders where the remains of 26 migrants were found over the weekend in a mass grave.
Glorene Das, director of Tenaganita, said the group had over the past year received testimonies from illegal migrants and refugees about missing loved ones.
She said the testimonies indicated Malaysians were involved in human smuggling.
But she cautioned that Tenaganita had received no eyewitness accounts or proof to that effect, nor any firm information on whether Malaysia also was home to any camps where migrants were held against their will.
‘When their family members are missing, or they have not written home, these people come to us to see if we can help them trace these family members,’ Das said.
‘We know it is true that (Malaysians are involved in human smuggling),’ she added, declining to give further information, citing the sensitivity of the situation and need to protect vulnerable refugees.
Das called on the Malaysian government to ‘investigate who they are and to continue the investigations so that the people involved can be prosecuted.’
The graveyard, located at Ban Chalung village in Hat Yai district, had been unused for nearly 40 years and there had previously been only six old graves, villagers said.
More than 50 Thai police officers have been punished over suspected links to human trafficking networks, the country’s police chief said on Thursday, after the prime minister ordered a probe into the discovery of clandestine detention camps for sea migrants near the Malaysian border.
A labour rights group in Malaysia said Thursday it had received reports of undocumented migrant workers going missing in Malaysia and called on authorities to investigate whether a deadly human-trafficking operation uncovered in neighbouring Thailand was reaching across the border.
Locals told police the 30 new graves had been there for about a year, according to the Bangkok Post.
Officials said the graves were similar to the 26 graves found at a Rohingya detention camp in a forest in Padang Besar sub-district of Songkhla’s Sadao district last week. The area where the graves were found had been used as a large camp that had held Rohingya migrants.
Police said the 30 graves had not yet been opened for examination.
Police also found an old detention camp in a rubber plantation in nearby Ban Khlong Tor in Songkhla’s Rattaphum district on Thursday. They believed the deserted camp functioned as a rest area for Rohingyas being smuggled
from Satun province to Sadao, where they crossed the border to Malaysia.
Police on Thursday also found 13 Rohingya migrants walking along the edge of a forest on Khao Kaew mountain in Padang Besar sub-district and took them in for questioning.
The group said traffickers had abandoned them in the jungle. Earlier they had travelled from Myanmar by sea to Satun with 17 other compatriots. They were told they were walking across the border into Malaysia but their guides suddenly deserted them. The 17 others were found on Wednesday.
Thirty-two bodies, believed to be migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh, were found in shallow graves over the past week in the southern province of Songkhla. Some of the bodies were found at a suspected human trafficking camp hidden deep in the jungle.
‘We have transferred over 50 police officers over this issue because commanders in local areas know who has been involved in what,’ chief of Royal Thai Police General Somyot Poompanmuang told reporters ahead of a meeting in Bangkok to discuss efforts to crack down on the illicit trade, Reuters reported.
‘In the past there were no sincere efforts to solve this problem. This is only something that has happened recently.’
Some Thai officials say human trafficking has been allowed to flourish for years amid indifference and, sometimes, complicity by Thai authorities.
Thai prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has ordered a clean-up of suspected human trafficking camps around the country within 10 days, while UN officials have called for a regional effort to end the illicit trade.
‘This problem comes from abroad and not from us. To solve it we must look to the source because we are merely a transit country,’ he said.
Thousands of illegal migrants, including Rohinghya Muslims from western Myanmar and from Bangladesh, brave dangerous journeys by sea and land to escape religious and ethnic persecution and in search of work abroad.
They are often trafficked through Thailand, a predominantly Buddhist country, and taken into the country’s jungles, where traffickers demand ransoms to release them or smuggle them across the border to mainly Muslim Malaysia.
Sunai Phasuk of Human Rights Watch told Reuters that the latest crackdown was the ‘first effort by the Thai government to leave no stone unturned’ and called for an investigation of military personnel suspected of involvement in human trafficking.
‘We see local politicians and police being investigated and named but what about military personnel? What about officials from forestry departments which have long been alleged to have provided support to human traffickers?’
Thai police have arrested four men – three Thais and a Myanmar national – on suspicion of human trafficking. Arrest warrants have been issued for 14 more people, police said on Thursday.
A Malaysian labour rights group said Thursday it had received reports of undocumented migrant workers going missing in Malaysia and called on authorities to investigate whether a deadly human-trafficking operation uncovered in Thailand was reaching across the border, according to AFP.
The call by Malaysian NGO Tenaganita came as Thai authorities said six more bodies were found near a site along the two countries’ borders where the remains of 26 migrants were found over the weekend in a mass grave.
Glorene Das, director of Tenaganita, said the group had over the past year received testimonies from illegal migrants and refugees about missing loved ones.
She said the testimonies indicated Malaysians were involved in human smuggling.
But she cautioned that Tenaganita had received no eyewitness accounts or proof to that effect, nor any firm information on whether Malaysia also was home to any camps where migrants were held against their will.
‘When their family members are missing, or they have not written home, these people come to us to see if we can help them trace these family members,’ Das said.
‘We know it is true that (Malaysians are involved in human smuggling),’ she added, declining to give further information, citing the sensitivity of the situation and need to protect vulnerable refugees.
Das called on the Malaysian government to ‘investigate who they are and to continue the investigations so that the people involved can be prosecuted.’
Source: New Age
