Malaysia finds suspected migrant graves
WANG KELIAN (AP) — Malaysian authorities said yesterday they have discovered 139 suspected graves in a series of abandoned camps used by human traffickers on the border with Thailand where Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar were believed to have been held.
Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said a sweep of the hilly, jungle area found at least 28 camps along a 50-kilometer stretch of the border. At one of the camps, police found “a highly decomposed body” that would be examined by forensics experts as teams began the work of exhuming the areas believed to be graves.
“It is a very sad scene,” Abu Bakar told reporters in northern Perlis state at a police outpost several kilometers from the suspected camps, some of which he said appeared to have been abandoned two to three weeks ago.
“We have discovered 139 of what we believe to be graves,” he said, describing them mostly as mounds of earth, covered by leaves and marked by sticks. “Forensics teams have gone in to exhume any remains.”
“We accept that there are syndicates involved in this and their main aim is for monetary gains,” he said. “We will investigate, and we will not condone anyone, including Malaysian officials,” Bakar added.
The finding follows a similar discovery earlier this month by police in Thailand who unearthed dozens of bodies from shallow graves on the Thai side of the border. The grim discoveries are shedding new light on the hidden network of jungle camps run by traffickers, who have for years held countless desperate people captive while extorting ransoms from their families.
Most of those who have fallen victim to the trafficking networks are refugees and impoverished migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh, part of a wave of people who have fled their homelands to reach countries like Malaysia, where they hope to find work or live free from persecution.
As Southeast Asian governments have launched crackdowns amid intensified international pressure and media scrutiny, traffickers have abandoned camps on land and boats at sea to avoid arrest.