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Mass 'migrant prison camp' grave found in Thailand
AFP
May 1, 2015, 9:33 pm
Bangkok (AFP) - Authorities in Thailand uncovered a mass grave in an abandoned jungle camp Friday believed to contain the remains of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh, a grisly find in a region notorious for people-smuggling routes.
The discovery was made at a remote camp in Sadao district, in Songkhla province bordering Malaysia, and comes as Thailand's junta cracks down on human trafficking following accusations that officials have been complicit in the trade.
The border area with Malaysia is notorious for its network of secret camps where smuggled migrants are held, usually against their will until relatives pay up hefty ransoms.
"There are 32 graves, four bodies have now been exhumed and are on their way... to hospital for an autopsy," Sathit Thamsuwan, a rescue worker who was at the scene soon after the site was found, told AFP, saying it was unclear how they had died.
"The bodies were all decayed," he said, adding a single emaciated man from Bangladesh survived and was being treated at a hospital in nearby Padang Besar.
National police chief General Somyot Poompanmoung described the site as a virtual "prison camp" where migrants were held in makeshift bamboo cells.
"There are 32 places that look like graves and whether there is one body or several bodies in those graves, we will we have to wait and see," he said.
He said the smugglers were believed to have abandoned the sick man when they moved Rohingya migrants across the border into Malaysia two days ago.
Local media said the camp and its lone survivor were stumbled upon by villagers looking for mushrooms.
The hospital confirmed the Bangladeshi man had survived and said he was in a stable condition.
A senior official from Sadao said exhumations had now stopped pending the arrival of forensic teams.
- Dangerous crossings -
Tens of thousands of migrants from Myanmar, mainly from the Rohingya Muslim minority but also increasingly from Bangladesh, make the dangerous sea crossing to southern Thailand, a well-worn trafficking route often on the way south to Malaysia and beyond.
Thousands of Rohingya -- described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted minorities -- have fled deadly communal unrest in western Myanmar's Rakhine state since 2012.
Chris Lewa, from the Arakan Project which monitors the smuggling routes, said survivors of the jungle camps often described horrific conditions as they waited for relatives to pay ransoms.
"If police find a camp and start digging you can bet they will find graves," she told AFP.
Last week UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the condition of such camps as "untenable", adding that their existence should "remain a matter of profound concern for the international community".
Thailand has been criticised in the past for pushing boatloads of Rohingya entering Thai waters back out to sea, and for holding migrants in overcrowded facilities.
The ruling junta says it has taken significant steps to combat trafficking since June, when the United States dumped Thailand to the bottom of its list of countries accused of failing to tackle modern-day slavery.
In January, Thai authorities confirmed more than a dozen government officials -- including senior policemen and a navy officer -- were being prosecuted for involvement or complicity in human trafficking.
Lewa said the junta's crackdown had forced many Thai smugglers into hiding, reducing the numbers held in jungle camps in recent months.
But smugglers have simply switched tactics, she said, keeping desperate migrants in rickety boats at sea for endless weeks.
"We fear there may be thousands stuck at sea because they can't disembark. The camps have effectively been transferred from the jungle to international waters," she said.
Two weeks ago she interviewed a 15-year-old boy who had made it to Malaysia.
Rather than hold him in a Thai jungle camp, he was kept for six weeks on a boat, awaiting payment from his relatives.
"During his time at sea he said he saw at least 30 people die. They were thrown overboard," she said.
Mass grave of migrant 'boat people' found in Thailand
PUBLISHED : Friday, 01 May, 2015, 10:57pm
UPDATED : Friday, 01 May, 2015, 10:57pm
Agence France-Presse in Bangkok
Rescue workers and forensic officials inspect the site of a mass grave uncovered at an abandoned jungle camp in the Sadao district of Thailand's southern Songkhla province bordering Malaysia. Photo: AFP
Around 30 graves believed to belong to migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh were discovered yesterday in southern Thailand, officials said, in an area known as a trafficking route.
The grave site was found in Sadao district of Songkhla province at an abandoned camp for "boat people" who had apparently been trafficked to Thailand's border area with Malaysia, a zone notorious for housing remote camps for trafficked migrants.
"There are 32 graves, four bodies have now been exhumed and are on their way... to hospital to for autopsy," said Sathit Thamsuwan, a rescue worker.
"The bodies were all decayed," he said, adding a single man from Bangladesh survived and is being treated at a hospital in nearby Padang Besar.
The local hospital confirmed the Bangladeshi had survived and was in a stable condition.
Rescue workers carry a body uncovered at the site of a mass grave. Photo: AFP
The grisly discovery of the grave was also confirmed by a senior official from Sadao.
"There are more than 20 graves," he said, requesting anonymity. "Military and border patrol police have now cordoned the area off so we can bring forensic officials to the site."
Tens of thousands of migrants from Myanmar - mainly from the Rohingya Muslim minority - and increasingly from Bangladesh make the dangerous sea crossing to southern Thailand, a well-worn trafficking route often en route to Malaysia and beyond.
Thousands of Rohingya have fled deadly unrest in western Myanmar's Rakhine state.
Thailand has been criticised in the past by the US for pushing boatloads of Rohingya in Thai waters back out to sea and for holding migrants in overcrowded facilities.
In January, Thai authorities confirmed more than a dozen government officials - including some senior policemen and a navy officer - are being prosecuted for involvement or complicity in human trafficking.
Thai police arrest suspect over human trafficking network following discovery of mass graves
Activists claim trade in humans has been allowed to flourish for years amid indifference – and sometimes complicity – from Thai authorities.
PUBLISHED : Monday, 04 May, 2015, 2:41pm
UPDATED : Monday, 04 May, 2015, 2:41pm
Reuters in Bangkok
Thai rescue workers and Muslim villagers bury coffins containing the remains of suspected ethnic Rohingya migrants recovered from a makeshift grave. Photo: EPA
Thai police have arrested a man they believe is the key figure behind a brutal human trafficking network that ran a jungle camp where dozens of bodies have been found.
Soe Naing, widely known as Anwar, was detained on Wednesday as authorities closed in on a camp near the Thai-Malaysia border where as many as 400 trafficked migrants, mainly Rohingya and Bangladeshis, were imprisoned for ransom, Police Colonel Anuchon Chamat, deputy commander of police in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, said.
He was charged with fraud related to his failure to release a trafficked Rohingya after receiving a ransom payment.
His arrest, and the uncovering of the camp containing 26 bodies on Friday, is the first major bust of a trade in humans that activists and some Thai officials say has been allowed to flourish for years amid indifference and, sometimes, complicity by Thai authorities.
“This is huge. He’s a big guy, a top guy,” Anuchon said.
Anwar denies any involvement in trafficking and says he made a living tapping rubber and selling fried bread. People with grudges against him circulated his photo and accused him of trafficking, he said in Nakhon Si Thammarat police station on Wednesday.
“There are many Anwars. I’m also called Anwar. But you have to consider which Anwar is actually a human trafficker,” he said.
Four other people have been arrested for alleged involvement in the network since January, Anuchon said, adding that phone records indicated the operation likely stretched to Malaysia, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Police are collecting evidence with a view to laying charges against Anwar, a Rohingya living in the southern Thai province of Songkhla, for murder, human trafficking and cross-border criminal activity, said Anuchon. Phone records, financial transactions and witness testimony point to Anwar allegedly playing a central role in the operation, Anuchon said. Police are also collecting DNA evidence from the grave site.
Case documents, as well as interviews with police and witnesses, provide some insight into one of the alleged networks involved in the smuggling of the more than 100,000 stateless Rohingya Muslims who have fled violence and poverty in Myanmar since 2012 – often held at sea and in camps for months as they are shunted from Myanmar to Thailand, and then Malaysia.
Amy Smith, executive director for Southeast Asia at rights group Fortify Rights, said the camp uncovered on Friday was just one of the many that trafficking survivors say are strewn across southern Thailand.
“To our understanding, this is the first mass grave that’s been uncovered by Thai authorities. This demonstrates Thailand’s level of complacency in conducting proper investigations,” she said.Stung by being downgraded by the United States to the lowest category on its annual Trafficking in Persons report – citing a lack of enforcement and the involvement of some officials – Thailand’s military junta has ordered a crackdown on traffickers and introduced the death penalty in cases where their victims died.
At the camp uncovered on Friday, just a few hundred metres from the Malaysian border, rows of bamboo pens sit beneath a tree canopy; makeshift water pipes run nearby. Discarded shoes litter the ground, a sign of what police say was a hurried evacuation just days before police arrived.
On Saturday, police and rescue teams could be seen pulling bodies in various stages of decay from the earth.
Two police witnesses recounted allegations of beatings and murders in the camp.
One, a former inmate who helped lead police to the site, said those being held were regularly beaten while on the phone to relatives in order to extract money. Those who couldn’t pay, or who crossed the traffickers, were often killed.
The witness, who cannot be identified because he is in police protection, said he saw 17 people bludgeoned to death in the 10 months he was in the camp.
“I saw four people beaten to death in the space of two hours,” the witness said.
Police said on Sunday that initial forensic examinations of the bodies found at the site showed no signs of violent death, such as bone marks or breakages.
One of those allegedly murdered was a 25-year-old identified only by his first name, Kasim, whose family had paid 95,000 baht (US$2,870) for his release. Instead, hearing that Kasim’s uncle had passed information on his detention to authorities, Anwar ordered him killed, the witness said.
Kasim’s uncle, Kullya Mei, said the camp guards called him before they killed Kasim, and placed the phone to his nephew’s face.
“He said: ’They’re going to kill me. What did you do?’” Kullya Mei recalled.
The next thing he said he heard was his nephew screaming.
Kullya Mei’s account was unable to be verified. Anuchon said police were investigating the allegation.
On January 11, police intercepted a convoy with about 100 malnourished Rohingya huddled in trucks in the southern district of Hua Sai, said Anuchon, the police deputy commander. One woman was found dead, another two died later in hospital.
Arrests following that interception yielded phone records that allowed police to piece together some of the alleged network, Anuchon said. Kasim’s alleged killing helped yield further evidence, with police saying bank transfer slips showed payments to suspected network members.
The network grossed about 10 million baht (US$302,147) a month, said Police Lieutenant Colonel Phongsathorn Kueaseng, an investigator on the case.
Second mass grave near ‘migrant prison camp’ uncovered in Thai jungle
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 05 May, 2015, 3:07pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 05 May, 2015, 4:34pm
Agence France-Presse in Bangkok
Rescue workers carry coffins containing the human remains of migrants exhumed at the weekend at an abandoned jungle camp in the Sadao district, Thailand. Photo: AFP
Investigators in southern Thailand have discovered five graves at a second remote jungle camp believed to contain the remains of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh, police said today.
The camp was uncovered just one kilometre from a similar encampment on a steep hillside close to the Malaysian border, where forensic teams found 26 bodies at the weekend, all but one buried in shallow graves.
“We found the second camp yesterday evening [Monday],” national police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri told reporters, saying the location was close to the first camp which lay 25 kilometres west of Padang Besar in Thailand’s southern Songkhla province.
“We also found five graves but cannot yet confirm whether any bodies are in them. Authorities will look into this,” he added.
Rights groups have long accused the Thai authorities of turning a blind eye to – and even being complicit in – human trafficking.
Stung by that notorious reputation, Thailand’s military government has launched a crackdown in recent months, arresting scores of officials.
But the grim discovery of bodies in various stages of decay has vividly illustrated the enormous dangers faced by desperate migrants trying to flee persecution or poverty.
Each year tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and Bangladesh make the dangerous sea crossing to southern Thailand, a well-worn trafficking route often on the way south to Malaysia and beyond.
Thailand’s southern border region contains a network of secret camps where smuggled migrants are held, usually against their will, until relatives pay hefty ransoms.
But the recent crackdown – which was sparked by the arrest of an alleged major migrant kingpin known as “Anwar” – has forced smugglers to switch tactics, emptying camps but leaving the weak behind to fend for themselves.
Two adults suffering from malnutrition and scabies were discovered at the first camp and were sent to a local hospital. A fresh corpse was also out in the open.
During a visit to the region on Saturday, reporters encountered two teenage migrant boys who had been apprehended by police.
They said they had fled the first camp when the authorities raided it on Friday for another one nearby, adding to suspicions that camps were still operating in the region.
The exodus of Rohingya, described by the UN as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities, has followed deadly communal unrest in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state since 2012.
Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh have also been kidnapped and trafficked to Thailand, after being duped with fake job offers or even drugged.
Over 50 Thai police officers punished for alleged trafficking links after discovery of mass graves
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 07 May, 2015, 5:25pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 07 May, 2015, 9:05pm
Reuters
Rescue workers and forensic experts measure human remains retrieved from a mass grave at a rubber plantation near a mountain in Thailand's southern Songkhla province. Photo: Reuters
More than 50 Thai police officers have been punished over suspected links to human trafficking networks, the police chief said today, after the prime minister ordered a probe into the discovery of trafficking camps near the Malaysian border.
Thirty-two bodies, believed to be migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh, have been 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.
“In the past there were no sincere efforts to solve this problem. This is only something that has happened recently.”
Watch: Voice of America's report on the link between mass graves and trafficking
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.
Thai police have arrested four men - three Thais and a Myanmar national - on suspicion of human trafficking. Arrest warrants have been issued for a further four people.
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.
Police use DNA evidence to identify southern Thai insurgents
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 07 May, 2015, 11:16pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 07 May, 2015, 11:16pm
Reuters in Yala
Police Major General Anurut Kritsanakaraket.Photo: Reuters
Thailand's military government has introduced a new strategy to curb the insurgency that has rumbled on in the country's jungle-blanketed south for more than a decade: DNA swabbing.
The police chief that the junta put in charge of the southern provinces bordering Malaysia, said DNA samples have now been taken from more than 40,000 people, making arrests and prosecutions easier.
Attacks by Muslim Malay rebels across the restive region have dropped by more than 50 per cent.
Resistance to Buddhist rule in the south spilled over in 2004 and, since then, more than 6,500 people - most of them civilians - have died in violence, including shootings and bomb attacks.
Successive governments have failed to quell the separatists.
The Muslim Attorney Centre in the province of Pattani says security-related charges this year are already set to exceed those of 2014, in part because more DNA evidence is being used.
Last year 37 people were charged in the province while in the first four months of this year the number was 22.
While the military credits DNA for the decrease in violence, lawyers and activists say the forced sweeps are further alienating locals in the Muslim-dominated provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat that were annexed by Thailand a century ago.
Zawawee Pi, a 26-year-old community radio member in Pattani, said he had been DNA tested three times already. The fourth time he was asked, he says he refused.
Zaweewee, who has no criminal record, said a police officer came to his door asking for fingerprints and a saliva sample. When he refused, the officer threatened him with a gun.
"They said they wanted evidence in case I did something wrong in the future. Why test for a crime I have yet to commit?"
Lawyer Abdul Aziz, at the Muslim Attorney Centre, said DNA collections were fuelling distrust.
"DNA does not lie, a match is a match, but the problem is the collection process. What is their technique?"
Major General Anurut Kritsanakaraket, commander of the Southern Border Provinces Police Operation Centre, denied his forces were being heavy-handed.
He said that DNA testing, which includes saliva swabs of suspected rebels and analysis of post-blast explosive residues, was not arbitrary.
The military's heavy presence and perceived tough line has stoked resentment among many Muslims in the south.
Thailand hunts trafficking suspects in blitz on people-smuggling trade
AFP
May 8, 2015, 6:28 am
Bangkok (AFP) - Thai authorities on Thursday issued 10 more arrest warrants against people suspected of human trafficking, as part of a blitz on camps used by people-smugglers sparked by the discovery of dozens of migrant remains.
National police chief Somyot Poompanmoung said officers were working to clear all camps within 10 days following an order by the prime minister, but did not provide details of how many sites he believes are located across southern Thailand.
"I will not allow these kind of camps to exist in Thailand," he told reporters in Bangkok.
Authorities have been at pains to show the country is serious about tackling people-smuggling after years of accusations that they turn a blind eye to -- and are even complicit in -- the trade.
More than 50 police officers, including senior officials, have been transferred from their posts since 26 bodies were exhumed from a mass grave over the weekend, near the town of Padang Besar in southern Songkhla province.
A further six bodies were found Wednesday near the same remote jungle hillside which is a few hundred yards from the Malaysia border.
All are believed to be from Myanmar or Bangladesh.
"The court issued more arrest warrants against 10 people suspected of human trafficking," national deputy police chief Aek Angsananont told AFP Thursday.
He did not elaborate on who the warrants were for but police have already charged several officials in Padang Besar in connection with the macabre mass grave discovery.
- Chain of despair -
Rights groups say people traffickers are likely to switch tactics as the crackdown bites, taking large groups of migrants to Malaysia or abandoning their camps.
In Songkhla's Rattaphum district police said nine Bangladeshi men were arrested for illegal entry after they were found wondering through a village late Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a Thai rights group said dozens of suspected Rohingya were found in two southern provinces Thursday.
"54 people believed to be Rohingya from Myanmar were found in Satun province this morning," said Siwawong Suktawee, coordinator of the Migrants Working Group, adding around half were found near the shore and the rest on a highway.
Another five suspected Rohingya thought to have escaped from a trafficking camp were found in Pedang Besar district, said Siwawong.
Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have braved the dangerous sea crossing to southern Thailand in recent years, with many headed for Malaysia and beyond.
Many die at sea. But of those that make it, large numbers end up in remote camps across southern Thailand where investigators believe traffickers demand up to $3,000 from relatives and friends for their release.
Others are sold on to Malaysia, according to activists working to expose the trade.
Thailand's junta leader said an effective crackdown needed cross-border co-operation on a trafficking chain that is fuelled by conditions in Bangladesh and Myanmar, but is run through Thailand, Malaysia and beyond.
"The Rohingya issue begins in other countries (where there is) no safety, no work and poverty so they leave... the problem has to be solved at the countries they leave from," he told reporters, acknowledging Thais are "involved" in the trade.
The exodus of Rohingya -- described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted minorities -- has followed deadly communal unrest which broke out in western Myanmar's Rakhine state in 2012.
Rohingya living in Bangladesh, as well as Bangladeshis, have also been trafficked to Thailand, after being duped with fake job offers or even drugged.
Last year the US relegated the kingdom to the bottom of its list of countries failing to tackle modern-day slavery.
