Rohingya woman flees ‘torture’ camp
PADANG BESAR: A Rohingya woman was discovered yesterday after she fled a jungle camp near Songkhla’s Padang Besar town where she was allegedly detained and tortured.
The woman, who later identified herself as Rohima Khatun, 25, was found by villagers close to Roop Chang mountain in Padang Besar subdistrict near the jungle camp where around 30 graves and at least 26 bodies thought to be Rohingya and human trafficking victims have been unearthed.
She was taken to the Padang Besar hospital yesterday afternoon. Khatun appeared to be in a state of shock and confusion when the Bangkok Post visited her in the hospital. She could not explain her background in detail. “I was beaten many times,” said Ms Khatun through a translator while constantly crying.
Identifying herself as a Rohingya, she said she was taken from somewhere in Myanmar and detained in a jungle camp in Thailand for around four months. Eventually she managed to run away.
There are around 400 people in the camp, mostly Rohingya and Bangladeshis, Ms Khatun said. She could not identify or locate the camp.
Observers believe she might have come from a camp different to the one where a mass burial site was discovered since that camp was said by witnesses to have held around 800-1,000 people.
“They said police were coming. Everybody ran. But I couldn’t run because I was too sick to move,” she said. After everyone fled, she walked down the mountain until villagers found her. She could not say how long she walked for.
Ms Khatun said her 10-year-old daughter was with her in the camp but now she has no idea where the child is.
Also being treated in the same hospital, Tutansasa, 28, the only survivor from the jungle camp where many graves and bodies were found, yesterday gave more information to national police chief Somyot Pumpanmuang who visited him at the hospital. “There are 60 to 70 camps around there,” he said.
“The camp held trafficking victims from Bangladesh and Myanmar. The people who run the camps demand ransoms from their relatives,” according to Ms Tutansasa who is a former account manager of a sugar firm.
He said he was kidnapped from Bangladesh nine months ago and was taken to stay in at least three different jungle camps in Thailand. At least 40 people died in the last camp, he said. “Please help me.”