Arakan News Agency
Police have stepped up surveillance measures at a temporary shelter in Nakhon Si Thammarat housing 95 illegal Rohingya migrants following information that some Myanmar workers had tried to lure them into escaping.
The move came after Sofie Muhammad, an interpreter at the shelter, told police that some Myanmar migrants working in Hua Sai district of this southern province had approached the Rohingya and had tried to persuade them to flee the shelter.
The Myanmar workers allegedly told the illegal migrants that they could help them join their relatives living in Thailand and neighbouring Malaysia, police said.
To prevent any attempt to lure the Rohingya from the shelter, police have begun to regulate all visits to the facility. Visitors will be kept under close police watch.
The illegal migrants are among 98 Rohingya rounded up at a road checkpoint in Hua Sai district last Sunday after police stopped a convoy of five pickup trucks.
The drivers of three vehicles fled and the other two were arrested. The two drivers reportedly told police that they had picked the Rohingya up from a coastal area of Phangnga and were taking them to Songkhla.
One woman was crushed to death while being transported in one of the crammed pickup trucks and two others died later at a hospital in Nakhon Si Thammarat. Islamic religious leaders from several mosques in Nakhon Si Thammarat are reportedly holding a tea party to raise funds to help the Rohingya at the Hua Sai shelter. A group of Muslim students from Pratheepsart School on Sunday visited the illegal migrants to give them food and necessary items.
Source : The Bangkok Post
