BANGKOK: Thai authorities have found the dead bodies of nine people believed to be illegal migrants from Myanmar whose boats sank in a recent storm, marine police said on Monday.
The bodies of six men and three women were found off the southern province of Ranong near the border with Myanmar on Sunday, Police Lieutenant Colonel Niran Chauyjit said.
"We believe they were all Myanmar migrants. They were found in the same area where their boats sank," Niran said.
He said 30 other migrants from Myanmar were rescued by the Thai navy on Friday night after their vessels went down in bad weather, and would be sent home.
Hundreds of thousands of people from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar work in low-paid jobs in construction, seafood processing and clothing factories in Thailand, where a lack of legal status leaves them vulnerable to exploitation.
Thousands of Muslim Rohingya asylum seekers have also arrived in Thailand in recent months, fleeing sectarian violence in western Myanmar.
An unknown number are thought to have perished on the way, according to rights groups. (AFP)
