By Max Constant
BANGKOK
People smugglers trafficking Bangladeshis and Rohingya Muslims across the Andaman Sea are changing their routes after a crackdown by Thai authorities following the June discovery of corpses at a trafficking camp, according to Thai media.
Phuketwan, a news website which has worked extensively to highlight human smuggling and trafficking networks in southern Thailand, reported an unnamed security source as saying Friday that the traffickers are now looking at new routes.
“Traffickers are likely to try to structure a new system using islands off the coast of Myanmar as a base, then probably deploying pickups or small trucks to carry stateless Rohingya south towards Malaysia,” the source said.
“Landing boatloads of Rohingya along the coast of Thailand is considered too risky for now, although recent flooding in Rakhine State and the lack of aid from the Myanmar government is expected to bring an increased number of Rohingya who are desperate to flee the racism and hatred they encounter in their homeland."
Following the discovery of over 30 corpses of Rohingya in jungle camps in southern Thailand on May 1, Thai authorities launched a crackdown on human traffickers, which led to the arrest of numerous suspects including a Thai general.
In the following months, trafficking boats unable to land stayed at sea, provoking a regional humanitarian crisis only solved May 20 when Malaysia and Indonesia agreed to let Rohingya and Bangladeshi come onshore and accept them as refugees.
Ranong Governor Suriyan Kanjanasilp told Phuketwan on Friday that he was aware of this strategy change and that Thai authorities will counter it by making new raids and arrests, especially after the start of the “smuggling season” in October, when the rain ceases.
“There are 62 islands off the coast of Ranong province. We aim to make sure they are protected,” he said.
Ranong - on Thailand’s east coast - has in the past been a favored route for human smugglers trying to move Rohingya to Malaysia.
Kanjanasilp said that more than 60 people suspected of involvement in human smuggling had been rounded up by the military, 19 had been arrested, and the others educated by the military on the "evils of the trade".
Phuketwan, quoting other unnamed sources, said that “at least four military officers have also been arrested,” but that their names have not been made public.
Earlier this month, a Thai court dismissed charges against two journalists working for the website who had been accused of defaming the Thai navy in a 2013 report on the smuggling of Rohingya through southern Thailand.
It ruled that text that appeared on the website was not libellous, as it was written to serve public interest and not a personal attack.
Alan Morison, a 67 year-old veteran Australian journalist and editor of Phuketwan, and Chutima Sidasathian, a 34-year-old Thai journalist working for the website, were acquitted of a criminal defamation charge brought by the navy and a count of violating the Computer Crime Act.
Rohingya have been fleeing persecution in Buddhist majority Myanmar in their tens of thousands since sectarian violence erupted in 2012, while Bangladeshis are mostly escaping extreme poverty in the hope of employment in Malaysia.
