Trafficked Bangladeshis Rescued İn Thailand

A human rights group has warned against a "distressing" development in Southeast Asia after human traffickers appeared to have expanded their trade, kidnapping victims from their neighborhood in Bangladesh.



More than 300 Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar were snatched from near their homes in Cox's Bazar, a fishing port in Bangladesh's south east, and forced aboard a boat taking them to a life of slavery in Thailand or Malaysia, the Phuketwan news website reported.



Thai police rescued 53 men in Takua Pa, southern Thailand Saturday and, based on interviews, estimate that 310 were grabbed – mostly Rohingya refugees but also some Bangladeshi nationals.



But Human Rights Watch warned the police actions in rescuing the kidnapping victims did not mean Thai police were taking human trafficking more seriously. In the past, police and border personnel have been implicated in collaborating with traffickers.



Philip Robertson, deputy-director for Human Rights Watch in Asia, told The Anadolu Agency Monday: "Officials from the ministry of social development and human security stayed all night to document these trafficked persons. They presented the Takua Pa police with a fait accompli, but at the beginning the local police were not very cooperative."



He added: "It is very distressing. It shows that there is so much money to be made with this smuggling trade that it is now turning to abduction. It has become almost a trafficking-for-ransom type of thing."



Robertson said "the impunity with which the traffickers are operating in Thailand" fuelled the trade. "Why is the Thai government looking the other way on this?" he asked. "And what are the Bangladeshi authorities doing? Some of their citizens have been abducted."



The victims told police they had been beaten up and forced to climb onto a boat. They were given a color-coded wristband to indicate their future "employer." Police suspect most of the victims were destined for Malaysia or possibly southern Thailand, Phuketwan reported.



Two Thai nationals have been arrested. There was no information about the fate of the 257 others on the boat.



To date, traffickers have traded in Rohingya fleeing violence in western Myanmar's Rakhine state, where they have been the targets of sectarian attacks.



The Myanmar government refuses to grant them citizenship, saying they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Tensions between the Muslim and Buddhist communities boiled over in 2012 when clashes resulted in around 200 deaths and left 140,000 homeless.



Many Rohingya have been rehoused in squalid camps and some pay large amounts of money to smugglers to flee on cramped boats in the hope of finding work in Thailand, Malaysia or Australia. In southern Thailand some fall prey to human traffickers and corrupt local officials.



For the Rohingya refugees rescued in Thailand, their chances of rejoining their families in Bangladesh seem slim as Bangladesh does not accept returning refugees.



www.aa.com.tr/en - Krung Thep