Human-rights activists have accused Thailand of complicity in the plight of people smuggled by boat from Myanmar and Bangladesh who are hoping to find better employment situations in Southeast Asia.
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But numerous people have been taken ashore then held for ransom in squalid camps and face torture and starvation.
24 new bodies have been discovered which were thought to be those of migrants have been found in Malaysia, citing police report media stated the news. “We don’t know how long the victims were buried or if there was a transit camp there”, National Security Council chairman Shahidan Kassim said, as quoted by the newspaper.
Up until Sunday, 106 bodies had been exhumed from pits at trafficking camps found in jungles along the Thai-Malay border.
Thailand discovered some 30 human remains in early May leading to a crackdown on human traffickers in the Southern part of the country.
The heavily forested border area spanning the peninsula has been a transit point for smugglers taking people to other Southeast Asian countries by boat from Burma as well as Bangladesh.
The bodies most likely belong to refugees from Myanmar, members of the persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority, Police Chief Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar told the Malaysian Insider.
This triggered a regional humanitarian crisis that saw them land in Malaysia and Indonesia after being rescued by fishermen.
At least 300 of them died in the sea, but there is no estimate of the deaths in the camps on Thai-Malaysian border.
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“Some Thai officials are complicit in trafficking crimes, and corruption continues to undermine anti-trafficking efforts”, the State Department said.
