26 more Rohingyas rescued in Thai forest

Twenty-six more Rohingya migrants abandoned by their traffickers two weeks ago and left to wander in the jungle were found on Khao Kaew Mountain in Hat Yai district near the Thai-Malaysian border today.

The latest discovery increased the number of undocumented Rohingyas found in and helped out of jungles along the Khao Kaew range in Sadao, Hat Yai and Rattaphum districts of Songkhla to 256 as of today.

It came as security forces and local officials continued to search for more illegal migrant detention camps in Songkhla and other Southern provinces.

A search team discovered the 17 males and nine females, six of them children, walking in a rubber plantation at Ban Na Kuan village in Tambon Chalong. Some of them are of the same family.

They told the authorities, through an interpreter, that they were supposed to have been taken across the border to Malaysia, but the smugglers deserted them two weeks ago for fear of being caught and arrested. They had wandered, lost on the mountain, ever since.

The Rohingyas were fatigued and had only tamarind which they had collected from the jungle for food.

A village mosque was being used as a temporary shelter for the 26 Rohingyas, who will be taken to Hat Yai district office for nationality screening and further assistance.