BANGKOK // Thai authorities on Thursday issued 10 more arrest warrants against people suspected of human trafficking, as part of a raid on camps used by people-smugglers sparked by the discovery of dozens of migrant remains.
National police chief Somyot Poompanmoung said officers were working to clear all camps within 10 days following an order by the prime minister.
“I will not allow these kind of camps to exist in Thailand,” he said.
Authorities have been at pains to show the country is serious about tackling people-smuggling after years of accusations that they turn a blind eye to – and are even complicit in – the trade.
More than 50 police officers, including senior officials, have been transferred from their posts since 26 bodies were exhumed from a mass grave last week, near the town of Padang Besar in southern Songkhla province.
Another six bodies were found on Wednesday near the same remote jungle hillside which is a few hundred yards from the Malaysia border.
All are believed to be from Myanmar or Bangladesh.
Rights groups say people traffickers are likely to switch tactics as the crackdown bites, taking large groups of migrants to Malaysia or abandoning their camps.
Thailand’s junta leader said an effective crackdown needed cross-border co-operation on a trafficking chain that is fuelled by conditions in Bangladesh and Myanmar, but is run through Thailand, Malaysia and beyond.
The exodus of Rohingya – described by the UN as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities – has followed deadly communal unrest which broke out in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state in 2012.
Rohingya living in Bangladesh, as well as Bangladeshis, have also been trafficked to Thailand, after being duped with fake job offers or even drugged.
Last year the US relegated the kingdom to the bottom of its list of countries failing to tackle modern-day slavery.
* Agence France-Presse
