HUMAN traffickers taking a group of 70 Rohingya people in a tightly packed pickup truck from Chiang Rai to the Thai-Malaysian border dumped two of them who had died and 10 others with nine now in coma at a dense thicket in Chumphon province, Amarin TV said today (Oct. 17).
At 11.30 a.m. Pol. Lt. Col. Phakdee Tananukul, an investigation officer at Lang Suan police station, was notified by monks that 12 Rohinyas were found in the thicket 20 metres from Wat Sekharam with all except one lying together in a ditch.
When a police team arrived they found that two of them had died, both men around 25 to 30 years old. The other 10, two females and eight males aged 15 to 50 years old, were found lying exhausted in the ditch with some foaming in the mouth and others writhing in pain as if they were about to die.
A rescue unit took all 10 to Lang Suan, Pak Nam Lang Suan and Thung Tako hospitals with nine found to be in coma.
Phra Palat Silawut Pasanno, acting director of Wat Na Boon, said as he was travelling in a pickup truck to pick up Phra Athikan Thada Kittitharo, the abbot of Wat Sekharam, an exhausted foreign boy ran out of the bushes and waved his hands while shouting in a foreign language.
At first he thought some foreign workers tapping rubber were brawling so he did not pay attention and continued on his journey. However on his way back, he saw that the boy was still there so the two of them went to have a look and found more than 10 foreigners lying in convulsion, some of them breathing faintly and almost dying so then called the police.
Mr. Hussein Mohammad, 28, an interpreter who came to the scene with the police, said the Rohingyas who survived related that a broker had brought them from Rakhine state in Myanmar on foot and in vehicles to a warehouse in Chiang Rai border area where there were hundreds of them.
Last evening (Oct. 16) this group of 70 Rohingyas were packed in a pickup truck to be taken to the southern border then onwards to Malaysia. They were all weak from the long journey with barely anything to eat and suffocating in the vehicle. When they reached Chumphon some of them started writhing, others lost consciousness and a few screamed for help.
This startled the driver who then told the stronger ones in their group to drag out those unconscious and weak and dump them in this ditch in the thicket close to the temple and continued their way.
Pol. Col. Niran Kanju, deputy commander of Chumphon provincial police, has ordered the provincial police investigation unit to work with Region 8 investigation unit and local police in collecting evidence from surveillance camera clips to track down the human traffickers and bring them to justice.
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The spot where 12 Rohingyas were found with two of them dead and nine of 10 survivors in coma. Photos: Amarin TV
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