Thai detainees in Laos freed, Myanmar workers in Thailand allowed home to celebrate Songkran

BANGKOK, April 11 (TNA) - Eight Thai detainees in neighbouring Laos have been released, timely for their celebrations of the Songkran or traditional Thai New Year festival with their families, while Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand are also allowed to visit their home country during the annual long-holiday festivity. Thai authorities at the Chong Mek immigration office and the social development and human security office in Sirindhorn district of Thailand's northeastern Ubon Ratchathani province on Wednesday received the eight Thai people from the head of Laos' Wang Tao immigration checkpoint at the Chong Mek border pass. The eight Thai nationals were freed by a court in Pakse of neighbouring Laos after serving their 6-month jail term each for trespassing onto the Lao soil for illegal hunting of protected wild animals. After completing their imprisonment and paying their finds of 30,000 baht each, the eight Thais were released. The Thai authorities questioned the eight people before sending them back home, all of whom are Ubon Ratchathani natives, and they have then issued warnings for locals not to trespass into the Lao side, acknowledging there are no clear marks indicating the borderlines between the two neighbours. Thai authorities have, meanwhile, facilitated legal Myanmar migrant workers to temporarily return to their home country during the long Songkran holiday period, aimed to boost Thailand-Myanmar ties, while also showing Thailand’s appreciation to the migrant workers’ contribution to the national economic development. The Myanmar migrant workers are provided with first class-air conditioning buses for their travels home once a day, with the buses set to depart from the main bus terminal of Bangkok's suburban Samut Sakhon province to Mae Sot district in Tak province bordering Myanmar. (TNA)