Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)-In the backdrop of discovering two mass graves within three days in Thailand jungles, the Bangladesh government requested the Thai government to arrange urgent access to the survivor.
The Bangladesh Embassy in Thailand requested the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs to arrange urgent access to the survivor by a consular team of the embassy,” said a press statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bangladesh on Sunday after a second mass grave was found.
The dead whose mass graves were found in Thailand are Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar or Bangladesh, said the advocacy group Human Rights Watch on Friday after the first graves were discovered.
In a statement released Friday, HRW cited police reports that say the victims "starved to death or died of disease while being held by traffickers who were awaiting payment of ransoms."
At least 30 graves containing human remains have been found in a "detention camp" in southern Thailand, along with a lone male survivor, Thai authorities said, reports CNN.
Another jungle camp was found on Sunday in southern Thailand holding even more bodies than the 26 uncovered in the first over two days of digging.
What the raiders nearly always found in the discarded jungle camps were groups of lame Rohingya and Bangladeshi boatpeople, too sick or injured to travel, reports Phuketwan, a local newspaper of Thailand.
The graves found over the past couple of days on the hillside near Pedang Besar, within 300 metres of the border with Malaysia, are dramatic evidence of the nightmarish existence of the boatpeople, abused in their hundreds to extract ransoms from relatives or friends.
A reliable source told the Phuketwan today: ''There could be more than 50 graves in the second camp, and there are other camps with smaller numbers of buried bodies scattered near the border.''
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh foreign ministry press statement adds: The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs has assured all cooperation in this regard.
They have further informed that the survivor is being treated with care at a local hospital and his condition is stable and healthy.
Bangladesh Embassy in Thailand is on constant contact with Thai authorities for follow-up on the matter of consular interview and nationality verification.
The Thai authorities have located mass grave containing mortal remains of 32 people reportedly from Bangladesh and Myanmar in a remote jungle in Sadao district of Thailand near the border of Malaysia.
There were further reports that a man from Bangladesh has survived there.
Bangladesh Embassy in Thailand has already been in touch with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security of Thailand, and sought details of the incident.
The bodies are the legacy of years of human trafficking, with local villagers in southern Thailand and along the Andaman coast either benefitting from the horrendous trade in people or turning a blind eye to it.
Authorities wishing to trap the traffickers have seldom had much success because vast networks of helpers always provided warnings when raids were being undertaken.