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Sorry - this page has been removed. US calls for speedy inquiry into mass grave deep in Thai jungle
(about 1 month later)
This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason. The US, which has censured Thailand for failing to act against human trafficking, called on Monday for a speedy and credible inquiry into the discovery of a mass grave containing more than two dozen bodies thought to be of ethnic migrants.
Police and volunteers exhumed 26 bodies on Friday and Saturday near a suspected trafficking camp deep in the southern Thai jungle near Malaysia that held as many as 400 trafficked migrants, mainly Muslim Rohingya from Burma and Bangladesh.
For further information, please contact: A spokesperson for the State Department said the US was in touch with the Thai government, the United Nations and the International Organisation for Migration over the discovery and understood that Thai authorities were investigating reports of other camps.
“We encourage a transparent, credible and expeditious inquiry into this case,” the official said. “We urge Thai authorities to investigate fully these deaths and camps, and prosecute those responsible.”
On Monday, Thai police announced charges including human trafficking and holding people for ransom against a Rohingya man and three local government administrators. They were seeking another four Thais.
The arrests, and uncovering the camp and the grave, represent the first major disruption of a trade in humans that activists and some Thai officials say has been allowed to flourish for years amid indifference and, sometimes, complicity by Thai authorities.
The State Department official said it was not yet possible to determine whether authorities were complicit in the existence of the camp, or if this was a case of people smuggling or trafficking, but involvement by Thai officials in trafficking was a problem the US has previously documented.
Last June the State Department downgraded Thailand to its lowest rank in a survey of countries’ efforts to eliminate human trafficking, placing it alongside states such as North Korea, Syria and Uzbekistan.
The US official declined to say what ranking Thailand would be placed in the next survey, which is due in June.
A bottom-tier ranking exposes Thailand, a key US ally in south-east Asia, to the possibility of sanctions on top of those imposed since a military coup in the country last year, although they have so far been largely symbolic.