NGO helps migrants flee Thailand
The Thailand-based Aid Alliance Committee (AAC) helped 55 migrants, who are stranded in Thailand, reach Myawaddy.
The workers had reportedly been illegally taken to Thailand by traffickers and kept in a compound in Mahachai in Samut Sakhon. The AAC rescued them on July 18 with the help of the Thai authorities, said Ye Min from the committee.
“They are from Thanatpin and Nyaunglebin townships in Bago Region. The brokers arranged work passes and sent them to Thailand. They took them via Htikhi with a seven-day border pass. And then they kept them in a compound in Mahachai. We knew their location after some of them ran away from the traffickers,” he said.
One freed worker said: “The brokers said we will have a job in Thailand. We gave them Ks650,000 each. They told us we could go to Thailand and sent us through Htikhi. We have been locked up in a compound in Mahachai for over one month. We have no job and some of them asked for help from the AAC."
The Department of Special Investigation (DSI), Thai army, anti-human trafficking police and labour affairs protection group cooperated to rescue the stranded workers, said Ye Min.
A total of 108 Burmese workers were being kept in the compound.