Staff Reporter :Malaysian authorities have found more mass graves containing the remains of more than 24 people believed to be human trafficking victims near the border with Thailand, police said on Sunday.The 24 remains, believed to be of Bangladeshis and Rohingya, were recovered from 18 graves at Wang Burma hill area near the Malaysian border with Thailand, close to where authorities in May had found hundreds of bodies in illegal detention camps, Malaysian-based newspaper The Star and the national news agency Bernama reported.According to the report, they were suspected to have died of abuse or malnourishment. Rights groups say some have been beaten to death, the report mentioned. The migrants are often held for ransom in squalid detention camps and according to some accounts face torture and starvation.The heavily forested Thai-Malay border has been a transit point for smugglers bringing people to Southeast Asia by boat from Myanmar and Bangladesh.Perlis Police chief SAC Shafie Ismail has confirmed the discovery of 24 fully shrouded human skeletons from 18 graves, believed to be victims of human trafficking syndicates at Bukit Wang Burma in Wang Kelian.He said all the skeletons were sent to the Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital in Alor Setar to be referred to pathologists.Shafie said authorities found 20 graves but they only 18 had human skeletons. “It is believed that heavy rain had eroded the graves which brought to the discovery of the skeletons on Saturday evening,” he added.He said it was believed that these 20 graves were older than those found in May and were located almost at the peak of a hill, but not far from the earlier find.Shafie said the discovery was made by a team of 15 officers and 108 personnel of the Royal Malaysia police’s General Operation Force; Forensic Division, Criminal Investigation Department; Anti Smuggling Unit, Special Branch and investigation officers.Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar confirmed the discovery of several more graves at the Perlis-Thailand border saying the graves were part of the original find.National Security Council Chairman Shahidan Kassim also confirmed the discovery. “It was raining heavily recently and the downpour swept away the soil and revealed the remains.” “We don’t know how long the victims were buried or if there was a transit camp there,” he said.Earlier from May 11 to May 23, police found 139 graves scattered around 28 transit camps abandoned by a human trafficking syndicate in Wang Burma hill and Wang Perah hill.The skeletal remains of 106 victims were found and have been buried in a mass grave in Kampung Tualang, Pokok Sena, near Alor Setar.The discoveries have exposed hidden networks of jungle camps run by human smugglers, who have for years held countless desperate people captive while extorting ransoms from their families. Most of the victims were part of a wave of people who fled their homelands to reach countries like Malaysia, where they hoped to find work or live freely.Human rights groups and activists say the area along the Thai-Malaysia border has been used for years to smuggle migrants and refugees, including Rohingya Muslims.In many cases, they pay human smugglers thousands of dollars for passage, but are instead held for weeks or months while traffickers extort more money from their families.A crackdown by Thai authorities in May drove traffickers to abandon thousands of migrants on rickety, overcrowded boats in Southeast Asian waters, triggering a regional humanitarian crisis that saw them land in Malaysia and Indonesia after being rescued by fishermen.
