THE FIVE women and children were quickly recaptured not far from the shelter but police had no luck in apprehending the traffickers who had planned to take a larger group south.


PHUKET: Police are hoping to cut off and arrest human traffickers fleeing south from the Andaman coast towards the Thai-Malaysia border today with five Rohingya women and children.

The alert was sounded soon after midnight when staff at a government family shelter north of Phuket discovered 14 women and children were missing.

The group had broken a window grille on a second-floor bedroom at the shelter in the tourist centre of Khao Lak, then used sheets to clamber to the ground.

Nine were apprehended close to the shelter and taken to the Phang Nga provincial Immigration centre in Phang Nga Town for questioning today.

Police were told that a mini-van guided by a saloon car was heading south to the Thai-Malaysia border with the five who succeeded in escaping.

A total of 58 women and children were being held at the refuge before the escape. Some had been there since May, others arrived last October.

Although the likelihood is that most will be relocated to the US or some other third country, many of the women have husbands in Malaysia.

In July, a group of single women escaped from the shelter and were quickly recaptured.

It is believed a man acting as a translator for a group of visitors from a Middle East country stayed on in Khao Lak to try to help the women escape.

Traffickers ask as much as 60,000 baht to enable passage to Malaysia for each Rohingya.

Although there has been a crackdown on trafficking in Thailand since the discovery in May of secret jungle camps and the graves of boatpeople who died before reaching Malaysia, the trafficking networks are thought to be still in place.

With intolerance of the Rohingya Muslim minority being stirred inside Myanmar (Burma) in advance of the November 8 national election, it's likely that more boatpeople are likely to flee with the safe ''sailing season'' approaching.

Thousands fled through Thailand over the years when officials turned a blind eye or took a cut from the lucrative trade in people.