Thai Version ไทย

Action in Hong Kong  

Background:

On the evening of 9th April 2008 in Southern Thailand, 54 migrant workers from Burma suffocated in a 6m x 2.2m refrigerated truck routinely used for carrying frozen seafood. These workers were being smuggled to the resort island of Phuket. Of the dead, 37 were female (including one eight-year-old girl) and 17 were male (including one boy). An additional 67 workers (14 of them under 18 years old and one pregnant woman) survived the incident. The 14 child survivors were separated from the adult survivors and have been kept in immigration detention in Ranong. All 53 adult survivors were sentenced by a local court for illegal entry and to a 2,000 baht (US$63) fine. As all but 4 of the adult survivors were unable to pay this fine, they were sentenced to imprisonment for 10 days. Now these 10 days have passed, the adult survivors, alongside the child survivors, are being kept in an immigration jail and have limited access to lawyers and other non-governmental assistance. The location of the 4 adult survivors who paid the court imposed fine is not known. Future arrangements for all other survivors, both adults and children, are also currently unclear.