77 ILLEGALS INFECTED WITH COVID-19

Thai public health authorities entrusted to set up field hospital to screen detainees

POLICE are investigating how 77 illegal immigrants, mostly from Myanmar, apparently contracted Covid-19 while detained at an Immigration Bureau (IB) centre.

According to the Bangkok Post, the detainees were kept in detention rooms at Bangkok’s Bang Khen and Lak Si Immigration offices and the Disease Control Department.

IB chief Pol Lt Gen Sompong Chingduang said the 77 migrants were nationals from Myanmar, Lao and Cambodia who were detained for illegal entry, and also included a number of Rohingya migrants currently detained in Don Muang district.

Since learning of the infections, the bureau has asked public health authorities to help set up a field hospital to screen more detainees and implement Covid19 control protocols, he said.

Sompong insisted that none of the Immigration officers handling detained migrants had contracted the virus.

According to a report by the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), up to 68 of the 77 Covid-19 infected migrants were from Myanmar and had been detained together in a small cell.

The Post reported that more than 2,000 illegal migrants were being detained at the bureau’s detention facilities across the country.

Half of them are at the Suan Phlu Immigration office’s facility, where none has yet tested positive for Covid-19.

On Wednesday, Nit Auytekkheng, vice-president of

Ranong’s chamber of commerce, said many locals were concerned over media reports that the province was being designated as a temporary shelter for political asylum seekers fleeing escalating violence in Myanmar.

They were afraid that the province would end up becoming a permanent refugee centre, he said.

A source said Maung, La-un and Kra Buri districts in Ranong and Tha Sae districts in neighbouring Chumphon province were being prepared as locations for temporary shelters for Myanmar asylum seekers.

Army chief Gen Narongphan Jitkaewtae reportedly visited Ranong and inspected locations earmarked as temporary shelters.

The cabinet previously approved a 438-million-baht budget for seven border provinces.

They are Tak, Chiang Rai, Ranong, Songkhla, Chanthaburi, Sa Keo and Nong Khai, all of which handle migrants detained on illegal entry charges.