A cage used for illegal immigrants found at a human-trafficking camp in Wang Kelian, near the Malaysia-Thailand border of Wang Kelian, yesterday. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Hasnoor Hussain, May 27, 2015.
Residents in the quiet little village of Wang Kelian near the Malaysian-Thai border in Perlis are still reeling from the shock that mass graves were found in their neighbourhood, which had also been a hotbed for people smugglers.
For locals in a village which rarely ever saw excitement, news of the camp and deaths of human-trafficking victims have been tough to swallow.
Abu Bakar Ahmad, a 62-year-old trader, said he never imagined that the human trafficking was at such a horrific extent in his own area.
"Never in my wildest dreams did I think there would such camps, let alone mass graves, even though I had seen Rohingya immigrants before," he told The Malaysian Insider.
He said the villagers had seen Rohingya illegal immigrants coming down from the hills, separating Malaysia and Thailand in the area previously, but no one thought the situation was that serious.
"They will suddenly appear from the hills. There would just be one or two of them. They will approach the villagers for food.
"They don't speak our language, so they use hand gestures to show us they need food. They would use their fingers to indicate how many days they had not eaten.
"They were in a terrible shape. The villagers would call the police and feed them before they were taken away. Such occurrences are rare here.”
Due to the nature of his job, Abu Bakar said he often goes to Thailand, where he would hear of agents taking payment from Rohingyas but would then leave them with nothing.
Now that he has read about the people being kept in terrible conditions, dying and being buried in shallow graves so close to home, he said it was just upsetting.
"I don't know how they had suffered but they were people, too... why did it take so long for our authorities to find out what was happening if it had gone on for several years?" Abu Bakar asked.
Police had reportedly said some 28 human trafficking camps and 139 graves had been found in Wang Kelian. They said some of the camps had been abandoned for a few years but others were being used until recently.
On Monday, Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said police had previously been unable to pinpoint the exact locations of such camps until recently, following the discovery of camps in Thailand, near the border, early this month.
"We see one or two Rohingyas, we call the cops and they are picked up quickly. So we never saw it as a big concern.
"We seriously never thought it would be this big, this serious... I have lived here for 40 years and I never imagined this could happen," Abu Bakar said.
Liza Ibrahim, 37, who runs a popular food outlet in the village, said folk were also upset over rumours that Wang Kelian residents were behind the human trafficking.
The rumour has gone viral among the locals via the Whatsapp messaging application, she said.
"I don’t know where the rumour came from but some people said it first came out in an article. I don't know about the article but folk are angry about the allegation.
"The people behind the rumour are saying the Wang Kelian-Thailand border gate was closed because residents here are involved in smuggling illegal immigrants.
"I think it is nonsense. There is no truth to it," she said between serving customers.
Abu Bakar Ahmad says he never imagined human-trafficking camps existed in the village. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Hasnoor Hussain, May 27, 2015.Previously, Thai and Malaysian nationals could enter both countries at the border gate without their passports. They were allowed to move freely only within 1km from the gate on both sides.
However, the free flow zone ceased beginning April 1 this year and all Thais and Malaysians are now required to have valid travel documents.
"Why would Wang Kelian people do it? We actually feel sorry for the immigrants. We helped some before," Liza said.
Like Abu Bakar, she said the villagers also pitied the Rohingyas when they saw them begging for food.
"Before this... maybe last year, we had a few Rohingya immigrants asking for help. They were dressed in rags.
"We felt bad for them, so we gave them food and clothes. So why are some people talking bad about Wang Kelian residents.”
Another villager Noraznie Syamira Zulkarnian, 26, also said she sometimes heard rumours of immigrants in the hills but she never gave much thought about it because she never saw them herself.
"You can imagine how people who have lived here all their lives feel about having human-trafficking camps so close to us.
"Kampung Wang Kelian is also a small village. I worry that others might think folk here have something to do with the immigrants.”
A long-distance lorry driver in his 50s, who declined to be named, said he and his family never knew about the Rohingyas.
"I am not around most of the time. My wife is a rubber tapper so she is busy in the estate and then at home. After work, we just stay home so we are not so in tune with whatever that is going on.
"We only suspected something was up when PGA (general operations force) trucks started coming a few weeks ago. That was something surprising and exciting."
He said it was, however, disturbing to see the pictures in the newspapers of the camp.
The photographs showing the conditions of the camp, the space the immigrants lived in and the barbed wires that kept them there upset him.
"How could they treat people worse than animals? They are not civilised. They have no compassion."
- TMI
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.