Migrants abandoned; Padang Besar mayor arrested (Updated)

As dozens more Rohingya, including children, were found abandoned by trafficking gangs in Songkhla and Satun provinces Thursday, police today arrested the mayor of Padang Besar, alleging he was a trafficking kingpin.

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Afternoon update

Six more bodies — four females and two male — are exhumed for identification from an abandoned Muslim graveyard at Ban Taloh Moo 8 in tambon Padang Besar of Songkhla’s Sadao district yesterday. PORNPROM SATRABHAYA

Padang Besar mayor arrested

Wichayant Boonchote and online reporters

Police on Friday arrested the mayor of southern border sub-district Padang Besar, alleging he was the kingpin of a Songkhla province human-trafficking ring that ran detention camps where the graves of dozens of Rohingya Muslim migrants were found over the past week.

Banjong Pongphol turned himself in to police on Friday even as a warrant for his arrest was being sought, said deputy police chief Aek Angsananont.

Police also arrested Supoj Muensew, an alleged hitman for the trafficking gang. The deputy chief said that the ring was involved in two murders in Satun province and tambon Padang Besar in Songkhla's Sadao district.

He refused to elaborate on the connection between Mr Banjong and Mr Supoj.

National police chief Pol Gen Somyot Pumpunmuang said today that the alleged hitman had been ordered to kill anyone who obstructed the trafficking of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Friday morning story

Rohingya human trafficking victims are emerging from forest camps by the dozen, as gangs go on the run from government pressure. This group of Rohingya received makeshift ID papers and were housed at a Songkhla province mosque. (Post Today photo)

Gangs abandon migrants

50 police investigated over trafficking, graves

Pichai Chuensuksawadi
Wichayant Boonchote

As dozens more Rohingya, including children, were found abandoned by trafficking gangs in Songkhla and Satun provinces Thursday, authorities have launched an investigation into the 50 police officers transferred following the discovery of Rohingya detention camps and graves.

Police and officials found to have turned a blind eye to the trafficking of Rohingya will face disciplinary action, even if they are not directly involved, a government source told the Bangkok Post.

If there is enough evidence showing the officials were directly involved in human trafficking, they will be dismissed from government service and criminal charges will be filed, the source added.

"At least two police will face criminal charges," deputy national police chief Aek Angsananont told the Bangkok Post last night.

The most recent police transfers were on Wednesday, when 38 officers responsible for areas which were key Rohingya trafficking routes were abruptly transferred to the National Police Office's headquarters until further notice.

Meanwhile, in Songkhla, 13 undocumented Rohingya, including four children, were found abandoned in a forest area.

They all looked frail and hungry. They were given food and drinking water before being taken to a police station.

They told the local administration authorities, through an interpreter, that they had travelled in a group of 30 from Kawthaung in Myanmar by boat and entered Thailand at Satun, where their traffickers forced them to walk through the forest on foot for 13 days.

They had yet to pay the traffickers, who promised to help them reach a third country through Thailand. The cost of the trafficking service was to be paid off later when the immigrants arrived at the destination and worked without pay for two years.

A large protest organised by the 4th Army in Sadao district town, Songkhla province on Thursday was in response to the recent discoveries of dozens of bodies at nearby detention centres operated by trafficking gangs. PORNPROM SATRABHAYA

Narongporn na Phatthalung, chief of the Hat Yai district office, said defence volunteers were searching for 17 other Rohingya immigrants lost in the forest after they were abandoned by traffickers who fled the crackdown.

On Wednesday, another 17 Rohingya were found in a forest area in Rattaphum district and taken into custody by local authorities.

Another 29 Rohingya, including a number of children aged six to eight, strayed into a village in tambon Laem Son in Satun's Langu district. They were starving and the children were frightened and crying for their mothers.

The 29 were given food and clothing and are staying temporarily at a mosque in the village. They said they had travelled by boat for 24 days before being dumped in a mangrove forest area.

Traffickers of migrants have shifted from land routes to international sea passages to bring the Rohingya to Malaysia through Ranong and Satun provinces, said another source.

In Hat Yai district, the Border Patrol Police Bureau inspected a deserted Muslim cemetery in Ban Chalung and found 30 more graves where Rohingya are thought to be buried.

In Ranong, provincial governor Suriyant Kanchanasil instructed 300 police, soldiers and other security officers to patrol along the Thai-Myanmar border in tambon Nam Chuet Noi in Kra Buri district, after receiving a tip-off that about 500 Rohingya were to enter Thailand.

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