Dozens of children among smuggling victims found in Thailand
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Dozens of children were among 98 suspected Rohingya trafficking victims from Myanmar discovered in pickup trucks in southern Thailand, police said on Monday, as more checkpoints were set up in the region to combat the trade.
Two Thai drivers suspected of trafficking the Rohingya, a mostly stateless Muslim minority from western Myanmar, were being interrogated, said Police Captain Somporn Thongchee, a deputy inspector for Hua Sai district, where the group was found.
Police intercepted five vehicles, including three pickup trucks, at a checkpoint in Hua Sai district in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, around 700 km (435 miles) from Bangkok on Sunday and discovered dozens of "very thin and tired men, women and children".
Of the group, 42 were boys and girls under the age of 14. One of the Rohingya died of suffocation.
"The truck was crowded and she also had not eaten," said provincial police commander Kiattipong Khawsamang, adding the group was travelling from Phang Nga province on the western seaboard.
"This is our first discovery of a group of Rohingya which suggests that smuggling in this region might have increased in recent years," said Police Captain Somporn Thongcheen.
They were being held in a government shelter in Hua Sai. If police follow the usual routine, they will be sent back to Myanmar or could languish in a shelter for months before the government decides what to do with them.
Last week, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said his government would step up measures against human trafficking as the country scrambles to improve its record.
Authorities in southern Thailand have increased road checkpoints to try to intercept smugglers, said Manit Pianthong, chief of Takua Pa district in Phang Nga province.
"The scale of the smuggling problem in this region is big," said Manit." These road checkpoints are one way of intercepting smugglers."
Interrogation of the two Thai drivers suggested the trucks were heading for Songkhla, near the Thai-Malaysian border, Somporn said. They were arrested on suspicion of people-trafficking.
Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar since 2012, when violent clashes with ethnic Rakhine Buddhist killed hundreds and made about 140,000 homeless.
Authorities have in recent weeks discovered scores of other migrants who fled dire conditions in Myanmar, taking advantage of the slightly calmer winter waters in the Andaman Sea to head south.
On January 5 police detained 53 migrants from Myanmar - the majority of them Rohingya - in Phang Nga province, a hub for boatpeople being transported on to mainly Muslim Malaysia.
Thousands of Rohingya have fled deadly communal unrest in Myanmar's Rakhine state since 2012.
In June the United States dumped Thailand to the bottom of its list, or to "Tier 3", of countries accused of failing to tackle modern-day slavery.
Tens of thousands of the world's trafficking victims end up in Thailand as migrants from neighbouring countries "who are forced, coerced, or defrauded into labour or exploited in the sex trade", the US report found, singling out the Thai fishing industry as an area where abuses are particularly common.
