NAKHON RATCHASIMA: Police were hunting for about 60 Cambodians believed to be hiding in a national park after 39 others were caught.
The 39 Cambodian men were rounded up and taken to the Khon Buri police station for prosecution while they were asking for food from residents of Ban Nong Bot village in tambon Khok Krachai of Khon Buri district Monday night.
According to Khon Buri district chief Supoj Saenme, Thai and Cambodian smugglers had brought the men across the border into Sa Kaeo province and ordered them to cut rosewood trees in the Thap Lan National Park. They had arrived in two groups of about 50 each nearly a month ago for the illicit job.
However, when they reached the park, they could not enter the specific locations where they were instructed to fell the trees due to intensified patrol by Thai authorities.
As a result, the Thai smugglers left them there. Initially, they supplied them with food but stopped doing so 10 days ago.
Thai authorities were hunting for the smugglers and the remaining Cambodian illegal migrants in the national park.
Earlier, Maj Gen Anusorn Nutsathit, deputy director of the Internal Security Operations Command in Nakhon Ratchasima, said groups of 20-100 illegal immigrants were hiding in the park for rosewood logging. This month alone 65 such illegal immigrants were arrested there.
