Twenty ethnic Uighurs escape from detention center

SONGKHLA, Nov 21 (TNA) - Twenty ethnic Uighurs from China have escaped from an immigration detention center in Thailand's border town of Sadao early on Monday. The Muslim Uighurs who had been detained at the facility for illegally entering Thailand since 2014 apparently dug a hole on the building wall and used blankets at ladders to climb down from the second floor. Twenty five had made it out of the cell but five of them were caught, said immigration officers. Security officers have been mobilized to pursue the twenty Uighur people still at large. The ethnic Uighurs believed to be from China's troubled province of Xinjiang are part of more than 200 Uighurs who fled to Thailand in 2014. Some 100 were sent back to China in the following year. Immigration officials have been unable to identity nationalities of all 25 Uighurs involved in the breakout. (TNA)