Hat Yai, May 7 – Suspected ethnic Rohingya migrants, who were rescued by Thai officials from a jungle, were detained today at the city hall in the Thai-Malaysian border district of Hat Yai, Songkhla province southern Thailand.
Police discovered a mass grave in the southern province of Songkhla containing 26 bodies at an abandoned camp used by human traffickers. The remains were of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, police said.
Survivors from the camp told reporters and officials that they were regularly beaten by traffickers and some of them were left to die because they were too weak to be moved.
The migrants believed to be from Myanmar or Bangladesh were also denied access to food and medicine unless they paid a ransom to their captors for their release.
Police suspect the traffickers at the camp moved more than 300 Rohingyas across the border to Malaysia as authorities closed in.
Photos : EPA/STR
