Signs of torture as corpses unearthed

MALAYSIAN police have revealed grisly new details of their probe into hundreds of graves found on a people-trafficking route, saying some of the corpses they had unearthed showed signs of torture.

While they did not elaborate on what methods of torture had been used, they said that metal chains had been found near some of the burial sites, suggesting some of the dead had spent time as prisoners.

The disclosures came at a police press conference yesterday, which followed the second large-scale discovery of shallow graves in the border zone with Thailand in less than a month. At the beginning of May, the skeletons of 33 migrants were found in a bamboo forest at an abandoned smuggling compound.

At yesterday’s press conference, Malaysian detectives said a total of 139 suspected migrant grave sites had now been found in 28 people-trafficking camps along the Thai border.

Khalid Abu Bakar, Malaysia’s national police chief, said some of the graves, found since May 11, probably contained more than one body, raising the possibility that the total number of dead could run into several hundred.

The dead are believed to be mainly Bangladeshi jobseekers and Rohingya Muslims fleeing Burma, where they face persecution at the hands of the country’s Buddhist majority.

Thousands are ferried by traffickers through the region each year, but in recent years traffickers have taken to holding them hostage around the border areas until their families pay ransoms for their release.

Human rights groups say most are in such desperate circumstances already that they have little choice but to comply. They have also accused officials of turning a blind eye to the trade in return for backhanders.

“Clearly this area has been an enclave for these ransom-for-release camps,” Philip Robertson, deputy Asia director with Human Rights Watch, said in an interview with Voice of America. “And I don’t believe for a second that that could take place without connivance, at some level, by the authorities.”

Pictures of the camps shown to journalists by Malaysian police showed basic wooden huts built in forest clearings.

The International Organisation for Migration said that migrants had been roaming in the Thai forests on the point of starvation and suffering vitamin deficiency.

“It’s people who are skeletal, they have no fat on their body; they’re just bones. They can no longer support their weight,” he told the BBC.

“They are no longer a commodity to smugglers, they’re an example to others that they have to pay.” – The Telegraph