Thai police have arrested three suspected smugglers after three Rohingya refugees died of suffocation in the back of trucks in Thailand, they said on Saturday.
Three Rohingya refugees died and six were injured in two vehicles where 26 people were reportedly packed to cross the border between Thailand and Myanmar in October.
The Rohingya, mostly Muslims, are persecuted in Burma, and thousands of them risk their lives every year to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia via Thailand or by sea.
The main suspect in the alleged smugglers group, Somkiat, or “Bang Golf”, 30, was arrested on Wednesday in Chanthaburi province, in southeastern Thailand, a representative of the Bureau told AFP on Saturday Thai central investigation office.
Two alleged accomplices, Nattawut and Pongpitsanu, aged 20, were arrested in Bangkok the same day.
They are detained for “illegal trafficking of illegal immigrants into the kingdom”, police said in a statement.
Police said Somkiat worked with other trafficking networks in the country and was offered around 3,000 baht ($88) per refugee smuggled.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh in 2017 after a wave of military crackdown that is now under investigation by the UN for genocide.
The military seized power in a 2021 coup in Myanmar where millions of people are displaced by a civil war.
