Over 60 illegal migrants rescued in Thai Far South

SONGKHLA, THAILAND, August 2 (TNA) - Thai security officers have rescued 62 migrant workers in a raid in Songkhla Province in the Thai Far South. In their joint operation on Tuesday, the Thai police and soldiers stormed into a house in Songkhla's Sadao District and assisted the illegal migrants from Myanmar, five of them are ethnic Rohingya Muslims from the Rakhine State. Police Colonel Narong Thetwiboon, a superintendent of anti-trafficking in-person division 6, told reporters that Tuesday's operation followed a Myanmar woman's escape from the house to report to the police. The Myanmar woman said that she and the other migrant workers were lured by a human trafficking group and locked up in the house for five days before she could escape to report to the police. The migrant workers entered Thailand through Tak and Ranong Provinces, paying about 8,000 baht per head to Thai and Malaysian brokers who would take them to work in another country, but they were stranded near the Thai-Malaysian border in Padang Besar because no one picked them up. According to the senior police officer, the illegal migrants will be repatriated, while the local police are tracking down the brokers. (TNA)