More than 200 foreign nationals rescued from scam centres in eastern Myanmar remain stranded along the war-torn country’s border with Thailand, according to a local rebel group overseeing their repatriation.
For years criminal networks have trafficked hundreds of thousands of people to scam compounds across Southeast Asia, including many along the Thai-Myanmar border, where victims are forced to work in illegal online schemes, according to the United Nations.
Karen National Army, a rebel group that claims to have repatriated more than 8,000 foreign nationals after rescuing them from scam centres in Myanmar’s Myawaddy area in recent months, said it was currently housing 216 people, including citizens of Vietnam, China, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
“We are giving food and medical supplies to these people,” KNA spokesperson Naing Maung Zaw told Reuters on Tuesday (Jun 24).
“Some are even pregnant, and we are providing health care for them.”
Since February, Thailand has halted electricity, internet, and fuel supplies to five Myanmar border areas, including Myawaddy, in a bid to disrupt the scam centres, which have become an escalating regional security concern.
Two residents of Myawaddy, which lies across from the Thai town of Mae Sot, said that there hasn’t been any electricity supplied from Thailand for months.
Power supplied by the Myanmar government has not been stable, leaving much of the settlement – and the scam centres surrounding it – reliant on generators, they said.
