More Rohingya graves found in Thai-Malaysian border area

Several more graves for deceased Rohingya migrants were found in a Thai-Malaysian border area on Wednesday, police said.

Nine graves containing the remains of the deceased Muslim Rohingyas were found in the woods of Thailand's Padang Besar area of Songkla province bordering Malaysia's Perlis state and near a graveyard where the bodies of about 30 others had been earlier found.

The police were investigating the deaths of the migrants who had apparently been brought into Thai territory by a human trafficking racket, members of which are still at large.

The Rohingyas had reportedly fled sectarian strifes in Myanmar' s Rakhine state and sailed on the Andaman Sea in search of asylum in a third country.

Arrest warrants had already been issued for eight suspected human traffickers held responsible for the deaths of the Rohingyas, who might have otherwise been smuggled across the border into Malaysian territory, the police said.

A couple of Thai military officers were allegedly involved in the human trafficking and are yet to be arrested alongside those unidentified suspects.

The police are yet to find out whether local politicians might possibly have been involved in the crime following a recent arrest of a Padang Besar municipality councilor. Endi