Mass graves of suspected migrants found in Malaysia

Mass graves believed to contain hundreds of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh have been found in Malaysia, the country’s home minister said.

Police discovered 30 large graves in two locations in the northern state of Perlis, which borders Thailand. Home affairs minister confirmed the unearthing of a mass grave near 17 human trafficking detention camps.

Hamidi said officials are determining whether the graves were of human trafficking victims, but did not say how many dead bodies were discovered. “This is still under investigation,” he told reporters.

Police discovered 30 large graves containing the remains of hundreds of people in two places in the northern state of Perlis , which borders Thailand, the Utusan Malaysia newspaper reported.

The Malaysian Star newspaper reported on its website that nearly 100 bodies were found in one grave on Friday.

“I reckon it was a preliminary finding and eventually I think the number would be more than that,” Ahmad Zahid said when asked about reports of the number of mass graves discovered.

Ahmad Zahid said that the camps identified are in the areas of Klian Intan and villages near the border. “They have been there for quite some time. I suspect the camps have been operating for at least five years,” he said.

Northern Malaysia is on a route for smugglers bringing people to Southeast Asia by boat from Myanmar, most of them Rohingya who say they are fleeing persecution, and people from Bangladesh seeking work.

Smugglers have also used southern Thailand. The Utusan Malaysia newspaper said police believed the discovery had a connection to mass graves found on the Thai side of the border earlier this month.

Twenty-six bodies were exhumed from a grave in Thailand’s Songkhla province, over the border from Perlis, near a camp with suspected links to human trafficking.

More than 3,000 migrants, most of them from Burma and Bangladesh, have landed on boats in Malaysia and Indonesia this month after a crackdown on trafficking in Thailand.