Phuket: Starving boat migrants wash up on Phang Nga shore

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Phuket: Starving boat migrants wash up on Phang Nga shore
Nattha Thepbamrung


Left, the starving men line up outside the District Office last night while, inside, food is prepared for them. Photos Nicole Lemmo

PHANG NGA: Eighty-six starving Bangladeshi and Burmese boat migrants arrived in Kuraburi District, Phang Nga, yesterday evening (November 11).

American Nicole Lemmo, who discovered them, told The Phuket News this morning that around 7pm she and two friends were sitting in front of their rented accommodation in the Sri Phang Nga National Park.

As they sat there a man who looked very ill staggered up to them on bare feet and begged for food.

“We did not understand him at first as he spoke only Bengali, so we informed the park officers,” Ms Lemmo explained.

“The officers came to see him and then discovered there were around 80 more men on the street outside. Around 80 per cent were Bangladeshi and the rest were, I believe, Rohingya.

“They all were starving and exhausted. Some no longer had the strength to walk.”

National park officers cooked food for the refugees and then around 9pm, Kuraburi Police came with trucks and took them to the district office where they bedded them down in a community hall.

Ms Lemmo said that this morning (November 12), when authorities talked with the new arrivals through a Burmese translator, the refugees – 86 of them – revealed that they had boarded a boat in Bangladesh, hoping to get to Malaysia.

They said they discovered after 20 days at sea, before the boat washed up in Thailand, that the two or three men running the boat had plans to sell them.

Ms Lemmo said, “It is human trafficking. They were brought to sell in Malaysia.

“After landing in Thailand, the men who brought them disappeared, dumping them in the jungle in Kuraburi, [where they stumbled around] for five days before they found us.

“Some of them told the translator that they wanted to go back to Bangladesh.”

Anupat Rodkwan Yodrabam, Kuraburi District Chief stressed to The Phuket News that the 86 refugees are being well taken care of.

“We have provided them with food, water and accommodation in the community hall for the time being.

“This morning a doctor from Kuraburi hospital and officers from Kuraburi Public Health Office came to give them check-ups and we also registered their names and details,” he said.

“It is not yet clear whether the Burmese contingent are Rohingya or not. We are in the process of getting detailed information from them because we are not sure what they need.”

For now, he said, the authorities can meet the basic needs of the refugees. Anyone who wants to donate money or goods to help out should contact the Kuraburi District Office at 076 491 353.

Later in the day it was revealed that at least 12 of those originally thought to be Rohingya are in fact Burmese. The others are still being identified.

Source: http://www.thephuketnews.com/starving-boat-migrants-wash-up-on-phang-nga-shore-49610.php


-- Phuket News 2014-11-12

[BeforeTigers]

I'd bet the authorities are pissed.
Didn't catch them in time to push them back into the sea.

[RustBucket]

I see TAT's constant barrage of campaigns to 'lure' extra visitors to Thailand is actually starting to pay dividends

[ClutchClark]

This is a tragic story about the human condition of suffering and greed.

Sad you guys find such humor in it.

[BeforeTigers]

This is a tragic story about the human condition of suffering and greed.

Sad you guys find such humor in it.

Gallows

[RustBucket]

This is a tragic story about the human condition of suffering and greed.

Sad you guys find such humor in it.

I don't think it is a human tragedy.. Far from it.

These people have managed to escape the most horrendous poverty and/or persecution and landed in a country that at one time would have been in just as much danger, but because Thailand is being scrutinized by so many human rights agencies across the world, they have to be treated with dignity and helped.

So personally I think their current situation is one of relief and happiness.

[Torrens54]

Re-provision them, make the boat sea-worthy and SEND THEM BACK!

They were not invited and if allowed to stay will, like so many before them create more problems in the "restive" South.

[kamahele]

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This is a tragic story about the human condition of suffering and greed.

Sad you guys find such humor in it.

I don't think it is a human tragedy.. Far from it.

These people have managed to escape the most horrendous poverty and/or persecution and landed in a country that at one time would have been in just as much danger, but because Thailand is being scrutinized by so many human rights agencies across the world, they have to be treated with dignity and helped.

So personally I think their current situation is one of relief and happiness.

How is being trafficked to be sold as a slave and then being starved a situation in which someone would be happy? They probably thought they were going to a better situation where they would find work so they could send money home to their families. Being sold as slaves or being starved was probably not what they had in mind.

[robertthebruce]

So so sad....

Well done to Nicole for helping out....

[Sviss Geez]

So so sad....

Well done to Nicole for helping out....

"...we informed the park officers,” Ms Lemmo explained."

What did she do apart from report them?

[rickirs]

These people present an opportunity for the Government to provide them with copies of the Cabinet's new expanded human rights framework, then send them on their way out of the country. Next!

[Oziex1]

This is a tragic story about the human condition of suffering and greed.

Sad you guys find such humor in it.

Black humor is what we use to deal with the darkness that surrounds us. Mans inhumanity to man is downright evil,

Sadly it's not going to change any time soon.