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Grassroots – HRE
Kyaw Thein Kha
June 8, 2009

A truck loaded with twelve Burmese migrant workers, had an accident at 4 am on the 2nd of June, 2009. The truck crashed into a six-wheeled truck and overturned near mile post number 15 near the Chainat area, Tumbon Prasriracha township of Kanchanaburi Province. The accident killed five workers on the spot and another injured one died as soon as he arrived at the hospital. Some other injured workers in the accident are under the treatment of the intensive care unit at Sanglauri Hospital. Other workers who had minor injuries are being taken to the police station of Sanglaburi township, Kachanaburi Province as soon as they are discharged from the hospital.

The police officer from the criminal department of Sanglaburi police station said, “The truck crashed into a six-wheeled truck. We don’t know who the driver was. He escaped. We’ll deport all the injured workers to the border when they completely recover. We don’t have the right to arrest the foreign migrant workers who don’t have a stable job. The Thai government has recently coded a regulation to deport them all to the border.”

A nurse, who was on duty at the hospital, said, “The five dead bodies of female Burmese workers were brought to the hospital. The two male workers were seriously injured and one died in the intensive care unit while receiving special treatment. The last one, who’s still alive, is also in serious situation. He’s still in a coma. In total, five women and one man have died.”

“I don’t know where the other victims are from,” said the neighbour of the three victims, “but one of them stayed near me. One lived in Kawtalay village, Kawgraid township and she was 22. Another two were aged 23 and 29. They smuggled into Thailand through brokers. The driver who brought the dead bodies to the hospital told me to come and collect the dead bodies. How can we afford to pay for the funeral of the victims?”

The number of Burmese migrant workers smuggling into Thailand through Thai-Burma border, are increasing because of their country’s downturned economic situation under the military regime’s domination of the country. The severity of the smuggling racket made international headlines in April last year when 54 Burmese suffocated to death in the back of a truck while on their way to Phuket. Some workers died on the trucks in check points when the police poked sharp iron rods into the surface of vegetables under which the smuggled workers were hiding. Some migrant workers were killed by the Thai gang stars, Thai police and village authorities.