Arakan News Agency
PHUKET: A Royal Thai Navy warship intervened in a sea chase north of Phuket today as undercover police on one fishing trawler pursued and fired upon a second fishing trawler.
The drama in the sea off Ranong province came just two hours after police in a province further south apprehended five pickup trucks carrying 98 Rohingya boatpeople, including 46 children and 26 women.
One woman was found dead in the tray of a pickup, thought to have been crushed to death by the weight of others lying on top of her to try to hide from authorities.
The tragic death of the woman, aged about 30, and the shots fired at sea mark the latest efforts to transform a covert policy that has for several years allowed human trafficking to flourish in secret rather than compel officials to halt the lucrative and inhumane trade in people through Thailand.
Observers were surprised at the large number of women and children captured in the ambush on the pickup truck convoy in the province of Nakhon Si Thammarat.
The families were being held tonight by local officials. Their fate will be decided in the next day or so when they are either declared illegal immigrants or human trafficking victims.
Three of the five drivers in the pickup convoy fled. The crushed woman was speedily buried by local Muslims, in accordance with traditional practice.
Source: PhuketWan
Photo: PhuketWan
