Rescue workers dig as human remains are retrieved from a mass grave at an abandoned camp in a jungle some three hundred metres from the border with Malaysia, in Thailand's southern Songkhla province, May 2, 2015. — Reuters picKUALA LUMPUR, May 6 — Malaysians were very likely linked to the human trafficking syndicate behind the mass grave uncovered in Southern Thailand last week, civil society Tenaganita claimed today.
In its statement quoted by English portal The Star Online, the group said that many Muslim Rohingyas and Myanmar refugees had admitted that they were sent to the border to be sold for sex and labour trafficking after their stint in detention camps or prisons.
"From the testimonies of the migrant and refugee communities, particularly the Myanmar, Rohingyas and Bangladeshi communities, Malaysians are very much involved in the trafficking of persons at the Thailand-Malaysia border," Tenaganita director Glorene Das said in the statement.
"There are many cases of kidnapping too, where huge amounts of ransom are demanded by Malaysian traffickers, agents and kidnappers from the families of the migrants and refugees.
"When ransom money is not paid according to the demands, they are brutally killed and buried," added Das.
Das said that the syndicate might involve the Myanmar, Rohingya and Bangladeshi communities themselves.
"Human trafficking is big business in southern Thailand, thousands cross between the borders into Malaysia and Thailand every day," said Das.
Bangladesh-based newspaper The Daily Star said on Monday that at least 250,000 Bangladeshis have been held in the jungles of Thailand for ransom over the past eight years, squeezing their families of anything between TK200,000 (RM9,200) to TK350,000 Bangladeshi Taka for each captive.
The Daily Star's report comes barely 48 hours after Thai authorities exhumed 26 bodies, believed to be of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh, from a mass grave in the southern province of Songkhla.
Despite that, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said there is no evidence yet to show that Malaysians were part of the syndicate believed to be carrying out human trafficking activities in Thailand.
http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/tenaganita-malaysians-likely-behind-southern-thai-mass-grave/
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