SONGKHLA, Jan 11 — Thai authorities on Wednesday rescued some 400 Rohingya people from Myanmar who had been confined at a rubber plantation by an alleged human-trafficking ring in Songkhla’s Sadao district on the Malaysian border.
The officials from the Internal Security Operations Command Region 4, Thai police from Padang Besar station and Sadao administrative staff, in a joint operation, raided the plantation in the Padang Besar sub-district of Songkhla and rescued some 400 Rohingya, who included five girls and 61 boys under the age of 15.
This one considered one of the biggest busts of human trafficking rings in Thailand.
The Thai authorities said all the Rohingya were in an exhausted condition.
Police arrested five Rohingya men who were responsible for supervising the detained Rohingya. A shotgun, a homemade pistol, 10 mobile phones and a laptop computer were seized.
According to the initial investigation, the group had been detained for more than three months, pending smuggling into Malaysia and work on trawlers.
The group was smuggled into Thailand via Ranong province and was transported in 10-wheel trucks to a temporary shelter in the rubber plantation, six kilometres from the Malaysian border.
One Rohingya man told police that he fled Myanmar in an attempt to find a place where he will not be a target for persecution. He said that he and 70 fellows Rohingya were lured by agents who said that they could take them the third country but were taken to Songkhla and detained there.
The authorities said that more than 2,000 Rohingya people were smuggled into Thailand and some of them have been taken to Malaysia.
The Rohingya were transferred out of the rubber plantation while the authorities have contacted related agencies to help them.
