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An illegal migrant from Myanmar is pictured at the Tha
Sala police station in Nakorn Si Thammarat province in Thailand, on May 6,
2017.PHOTO: REUTERS
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BANGKOK (AFP) - Thai
police said on Saturday (May 6) they were hunting for suspected human smugglers
who deserted 35 Myanmar nationals in southern Thailand, a key stop on a
regional trafficking route.
The 28 men and 7
women were found in Thailand's Nakhon Si Thammarat province on Friday without
passports or proper visas, provincial police commander Wancha Akepornpich told
AFP.
They were bound for
Malaysia where they had been promised work on rubber and palm plantations.
"Their driver
told them to wait while he went to go buy meals, but then he fled,"
Akepornpich said.
The officer told AFP
the men and women were not Rohingya, a Muslim minority that has fled Myanmar in
droves to escape persecution.
The group told Thai
police they crossed overland into western Thailand before travelling south by
truck.
That route has become
more popular since Thai authorities clamped down on trafficking gangs who for
years ferried tens of thousands of Myanmar refugees and migrants across the Bay
of Bengal by boat.
Before crossing into
Malaysia, the trafficking victims were often held in Thai jungle camps where
they were beaten, raped and abused until relatives paid release ransoms.
The dangerous sea
crossings have slowed dramatically since the 2015 crackdown, according to a
recent report by the UN's refugee agency.
The UNHCR said there
were rumours of "isolated attempts" but no confirmed maritime
arrivals in 2016.
However more than
100 Myanmar people - half of whom were Rohingya - were caught by authorities
attempting overland travel to Malaysia, it said.
Thailand's belated
crackdown led to the prosecution of more than 80 trafficking suspects,
including local officials and a senior army general. Yet their ongoing trial
has been closed off to the media, raising concerns about transparency.
While the movement
of Rohingya through Thailand has slowed to a trickle, some 75,000 of the ethnic
minority have fled west to Bangladesh since October.
The mass exodus was
spurred by a bloody military crackdown in the north of Rakhine state, where the
nearly one-million strong Rohingya are based.