RATCHABURI: Highway police arrested 48 Rohingya migrants boarding a chartered bus in Pak Tho district early Wednesday morning.
Acting on a tip-off that a number of illegal migrant workers were being transported to the lower South, officers intercepted the bus for a search on Phetkasem highway in tambon Wang Manao, Pol Col Vachira Yaothaisong, commander of Highway Police Subdivision 2, said on Wednesday.
Found in the bus were 48 Rohingya migrants - 30 men and 18 women. Of them, five were under 13 years old.
During questioning, the migrants said they were from Rakhine state in Myanmar. After a trek on foot, they entered Thailand through a natural border crossing into Mae Sot district, Tak province. There, they were met by a group of Thai brokers.
The migrants were being transported to the South of Thailand, from which they would proceed to Malaysia. Some of them would seek to continue their study in that country while others would find jobs on fishing boats or at construction sites.
They were charged with illegal entry and were handed over to Pak Tho police for legal proceedings, pending repatriation.
Two Thai men - Somsak Damnoen, 28, and Pongpak Ruamprom, 62 - and a Thai woman, Montha Khotpong, 52, were also arrested. They were accompanying the migrants to the South as guides.
They said they were hired for 3,000 baht to take the migrants on a bus from Muang district in Suphan Buri to Hat Yai, Songkhla.
The three Thais were charged with helping foreigners who had entered the country illegally.
