MALAYSIAN POLICE SAY that they have found 139 grave sites and 28 abandoned detention camps used by people-smugglers and capable of housing hundreds, laying bare the grim extent of the region’s migrant crisis.
National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said it remained unclear how many bodies were buried in the inaccessible area of mountainous jungle along the Thai border.
But the findings appeared to indicate a system of camps and graves larger than those discovered by Thai police in early May, a finding which ignited regional concern about human-smuggling and -trafficking.
The Malaysian discovery follows earlier denials by the government — long accused by rights groups of not doing enough to stop the illicit trade — that such grisly sites existed in the country.
“(Authorities) found 139 suspected graves. They are not sure how many bodies are inside each grave,” Khalid told reporters in the border town of Wang Kelian.
“They also found 28 detention camps.”
“It’s a very sad scene… to us even one is serious and we have found 139,” Khalid said.
The police chief also vowed to find the culprits involved in the crime.
Bodies were being exhumed and police have released no information yet on causes of death.
Khalid said the largest of the 28 camps could hold up to 300 people, another had a capacity of 100, and the rest about 20 each.
By comparison, Thai police have said they found a half-dozen jungle camps and more than 30 bodies so far on their side.
Thailand was previously a major people-smuggling route to Malaysia, which is the preferred destination of migrants from Bangladesh and from Myanmar’s oppressed Rohingya minority.
But a Thai crackdown launched after graves were found there triggered a regional boat people crisis as nervous traffickers abandoned overloaded vessels carrying the starving migrants.
After initially turning boatloads away, Malaysia and Indonesia last week bowed to international pressure to accept the boat people temporarily.
Rights groups say thousands more men, women and children may still be at sea.
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