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 The government said it was investigating whether local forestry
officials were involved with the people-smuggling gangs believed
responsible for nearly 140 such graves discovered around grim camps
in the country's northwest.
The dense forests of southern Thailand and northern Malaysia have
been a major stop-off point for smugglers bringing people to
Southeast Asia by boat from Myanmar, most of them Rohingya Muslims
who say they are fleeing persecution, and Bangladesh.
On Tuesday authorities took a group of journalists to one of the
camps, nestled in a gully in thick jungle up a steep, well-worn path
about an hour's walk from the nearest road.
Apparently abandoned in haste, what remained of the camp was little
more than a tangle of bamboo and tarpaulin, but one police official,
who did not want to be identified, said it could have help up to 400
people.
The first body was removed on Tuesday afternoon, a Reuters witness
said. Muhammad Bahar, of Perlis state police CID, said he could not
confirm the state of the body or how long it had been there, but
added the grave could contain more bodies.
Malaysian authorities said on Monday they had found 139 graves, some
containing more than one body, around 28 camps scattered along a
50-km (30 mile) stretch of the border in the northern state of
Perlis.
THAI CRACKDOWN
The grisly discoveries in Malaysia followed the uncovering of
similar graves on the Thai side of the border at the beginning of
May, which helped trigger a regional crisis. The find led to a
crackdown on the camps by Thai authorities, after which traffickers
abandoned thousands of migrants in overloaded boats in the Bay of
Bengal and Andaman Sea.
"We don't know if there is a link between the Thai camps and
Malaysia camps," Phuttichart Ekachan, deputy chief of Thailand's
Provincial Police Region 9, told Reuters.
"It is possible that because of the Thai crackdown some of the camps
moved and some of them (migrants) then walked over or escaped to the
Thai side. It is possible but it isn't something we have been able
to confirm."
Thousands of Rohingya Muslims are ferried by traffickers through
southern Thailand each year, and in recent years it has been common
for them to be held in remote camps along the border with Malaysia
until a ransom is paid for their freedom.
State news agency Bernama quoted Malaysia's police chief, Inspector
General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar, as saying that the camps were
thought to have been occupied since 2013, and two were "only
abandoned between two and three weeks ago".
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Khalid told reporters on Monday that police had been "shocked by the
cruelty" of the fenced camps, where he said there were signs of
torture.
The scale of the discoveries has raised questions about the level of
complicity by officials on both sides of the border.
Malaysia's Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said on Tuesday that
initial investigations revealed links between forest rangers and
smuggling syndicates, Bernama reported, adding that some had been
detained by police as part of the probe.
"We suspect some of them were involved...but we are working with the
forestry department in terms of enforcement as they are supposed to
carry out enforcement in the area," he was quoted as telling
reporters at parliament.
RECENTLY ABANDONED
A large plastic water tank could be seen at the camp visited by
Reuters reporters on Tuesday, suggesting a degree of permanence. A
call to Muslim prayers could be heard drifting from a nearby
settlement.
An official said 37 graves had been found at the site, a few hundred
meters for the Thai border. As the police teams began to dig, a
large supply of body bags and white cotton shrouds was piled on the
ground.
On Monday evening, police had removed a badly decomposed body found
unburied in a shack at one of the camps. Police said the
unidentified person had been dead around two or three weeks.
"The victim could have died and the syndicate did not have time to
bury the body as they were rushing to leave the camp," Bernama
quoted local district police chief Rizani Che Ismail as saying.
Residents in the town of Wang Kelian, on the Malaysian side of the
border, said they were used to seeing migrants in the area.
"They are often starving, not eaten for weeks," said Abdul Rahman
Mahmud, a resident who runs a small hostel. "They eat seeds or
leaves or whatever they can find. It's a real pity and it's sad to
see this."
(Writing by Alex Richardson; Additional reporting by Anuradha Raghu
in Kuala Lumpur, Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Pracha Hariraksapitak in
Bangkok; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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