Cops Arrest Migrant Workers Amid Virus Surge in Myanmar

Security officers question a group of migrant workers arrested for illegally crossing the border in Tak province on Aug. 31, 2020.

BANGKOK (Xinhua) — Thai border police officers have on Monday made arrests of 11 Myanmar nationals who allegedly sneaked into the Thai soil from the porous border line between Thailand and Myanmar at Thailand’s Western Province of Tak on late Monday.

Health officials detected two of the 11 migrant workers with high temperature.

The crack down on illegal migrants came as COVID-19 cases are on the rise in Thailand’s neighboring country of Myanmar.

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Chaiyapruek Chianthanrak, chief of the Mae Sot district in Tak Province told the media that the illegal migrants made several attempts to cross the Moei River into Thailand, but were ambushed by the Mae Sot security task force.

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“We managed to arrest 3 Myanmar nationals as soon as their boat arrived at the bank, and later learned that the remaining eight, including 6 women and 2 men, were hiding in a building near the Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge.”

The Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge is a bridge over the Moei river, which connects the city of Mae Sot in Tak Province in Thailand with the city of Myawaddy in Kayin State in Myanmar.