260 people, including Indians, freed from Myanmar slave labor

 

 

Bangkok: The Thai military has announced that 260 people, including Indians, who were trapped as slave laborers in online fraud centers in Myanmar have been freed. They were brought from Mawi district in southeastern Myanmar to Tak province in Thailand and will be sent back to their homeland after the procedures. The freed people are from 20 countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan, China, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

They were freed by the Karen Army, a minority tribal armed group that controls the southern regions of Myanmar, and handed them over to the Thai military. The Myanmar military government has no control over this region. Criminal groups based in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, which share borders with Thailand, are behind the human trafficking.

Thousands of people from various countries are being brought to Bangkok with the promise of jobs and then taken to centers in Myanmar. China intervened in 2023 to crack down on online fraud and illegal gambling centers centered in the border area of Myanmar's northern Shan state. 45,000 Chinese were released that day. The Thai military also took action with the support of China.