Thailand finds 6 more bodies in trafficking probe

BANGKOK: Thai police investigating people-smuggling said six more bodies were found on Wednesday in the same patch of jungle bordering Malaysia where the remains of dozens of migrants were exhumed last week.

The grim discovery was made about one kilometre from the hillside site where 26 bodies were found over the weekend, near the town of Padang Besar in the southern province of Songkhla.

National police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri said the bodies of two men and four women had been found.

"It was in a graveyard in a forest on the hillside... around one kilometre from the first camp," he told AFP.

"They were old bodies," Prawut said, referring to their state of decay.

A second senior police officer confirmed the find.

Thai authorities have not yet identified any of the bodies, saying they are in a severe condition of decay.

But the dead are believed to be migrants from Myanmar or Bangladesh. While forensic officers have yet to conclude the causes of death, police have speculated that they may have died from malnutrition or disease.

Several officials from Padang Besar have been charged with human trafficking, while more than a dozen policeman in southern Thailand have been transferred from their positions.

Three more people are on the run, Prawut added. Rights groups have long accused the Thai authorities of turning a blind eye to — and even being complicit in — people-smuggling.

In recent months the military junta, which took over in a coup last May, has vowed to crack down on the trade.

In January it said more than a dozen government officials — including senior policemen and a navy officer — were being prosecuted for involvement or complicity in human trafficking. Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims — mainly from Myanmar — have made the dangerous sea crossing to southern Thailand in recent years, with many trying to reach Malaysia and beyond.

But many are held captive by ruthless people-trafficking networks that demand thousands of dollars from their friends or family to release them.

On Tuesday anti-trafficking group Freeland said a recent investigation conducted by police and NGOs revealed traffickers were demanding around $3,000 per migrant from family members, or selling them on to Malaysian farmers for $1,000 each.

Agence France-Presse

http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/thailand-finds-6-more-bodies-in-trafficking-probe/