HAT YAI, Thailand (AP) – Police found dozens of shallow graves, a corpse and an ailing survivor Friday at an abandoned jungle camp in an area of southern Thailand that is regularly used to smuggle Rohingya Muslims, Bangladeshis and other migrants to third countries.
The grim discovery was a sharp reminder of the brutal human trafficking networks that operate in Thailand, a known transiting route for Rohingya, one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.
Acting on a tip from villagers, Thai authorities sent teams of police and rescuers into the mountains of Padang Besar sub-district in southern Thailand’s Songkhla province. Reaching the camp on foot, they found a shelter with at least one corpse, a man who was alive but very weak and what appeared to be several other bodies, police Col. Weerasant Tharnpiem said.
An Associated Press reporter who visited the scene later saw six bodies – five dug up from graves and another that had not been buried. He said a rescue team told him that 27 remaining graves had not yet been dug up. The graves had simple bamboo markers but no evident identification of the bodies.
Last June, the United States put Thailand in its lowest category – “Tier 3” – in its annual assessment of how governments around the world have performed in fighting human trafficking. The ranking took into account the smuggling of Rohingya, as well as cases of migrants from neighboring countries who are forced or defrauded into working against their will in the sex industry, commercial fishing, garment production, factories and domestic work.