54 Myanmar migrants suffocate in truck
By SUTIN WANNABOVORN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Apr 10, 5:12 AM ET
BANGKOK, Thailand - Fifty-four migrant workers from Myanmar suffocated
in the back of an unventilated truck Thursday, while the rest of the
passengers being smuggled to Thailand pounded on the container and
screamed in vain for the driver's help.
More than 100 migrants, mostly women, were about two hours into their
trip to the resort island of Phuket late Wednesday when they started
collapsing, police and survivors said. At that point, in Ranong
province near Myanmar, their ruckus caused the driver to stop. When he
unlocked the container and discovered the dead workers, survivors said
he ran off.
Forty-seven of the occupants survived, but 21 were hospitalized. The
rest were held for questioning, Police Col. Kraithong Chanthongbai
said.
Local television footage showed police lifting bodies out of the truck
and images of the container empty except for a few pieces of clothing.
The dead workers -- many wearing little more than T-****rts, shorts and
flip-flops -- were seen laid out on the floor of a local charity.
"I thought everyone was going to die," said Saw Win, a 30-year-old
survivor, told The Associated Press from police custody. "I thought I
was going to die. If the truck had driven for 30 minutes more, I would
have died for sure."
Win said that about 30 minutes into the trip workers pounded on the
container, screamed for air and called the driver, who briefly turned
on the air conditioning.
The air conditioning later went off, and they called the driver again
30 minutes later but his phone was off. They continued pounding and
yelling until he stopped the truck about an hour later, unlocked the
container and ran off when he saw the state of the victims, Win said.
"When police got to the scene, they found that 54 of the workers were
already dead in the packed container truck," Kraithong said.
Of the dead, 37 were women and 17 were men. Kraithong said 101 people
were packed into the 7 feet by 20 feet container.
Police did not immediately know what jobs they were heading for, but
illegal migrants from Thailand's impoverished neighbor generally come
to the country to work in the fi****ng and construction industries or
as maids.
Survivors told police that they each paid $314 to be smuggled into
Thailand.
Police were searching for the truck's driver, who they accused of
failing to provide enough air conditioning in the back of the truck,
and members of the smuggling gang they believed arranged the trip.
The truck's owner, who was detained for questioning Thursday, claimed
he was unaware the vehicle was being used to trans****t migrants from
Myanmar, police said. He was not under arrest.
Kraithong said the truck normally was used to trans****t seafood.
The incident was reminiscent of the deaths in 2001 of 58 illegal
Chinese migrants in a sweltering tomato truck in Britain, which
exposed the murky underworld of people-smuggling gangs who profit from
migrants who hope to earn a living in more developed countries.
A group of 19 Latin American migrants died from overheating and
suffocation in a tractor-trailer truck in the U.S. state of Texas in
2003.
The survivors of Wednesday's suffocation told police they snuck into
Ranong province from Myanmar's Victoria Point by fi****ng boat
Wednesday night and were then packed into a small container truck for
a trip to Phuket.
Ranong province is about 290 miles south of Bangkok just across from
Myanmar's Victoria Point, and is regarding as a major point of trade
between the two countries.
There are about a million Myanmar workers registered to work in
Thailand, and an additional million estimated to be in the country
illegally to work mostly as laborers, joining hundreds of thousands
from Cambodia and Laos.
The illegal workers lack legal protections and are often ruthlessly
exploited.
Some of the Myanmar migrants flee their country to escape armed
conflicts between ethnic minority rebels and the Myanmar army, and
others for lack of economic op****tunity in their impoverished country,
one of the poorest in Asia.
The London-based human rights group Amnesty International found in a
2005 re****t that workers from Myanmar take jobs that Thais consider
too dirty, dangerous or demeaning, "are routinely paid well below the
Thai minimum wage, work long hours in unhealthy conditions and are at
risk of arbitrary arrest and de****tation."
Many also face great risk in reaching Thailand. In December,
authorities recovered the bodies of 22 Myanmar migrants found floating
off the west coast of Thailand in the Andaman Sea. They were believed
to be trying to enter Thailand illegally.
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