Thailand’s New COVID-19 Outbreak: Myanmar Migrants Mustn’t Be Scapegoated
Myanmar migrant workers return from Thailand via the Mae Sot-Myawaddy border post in July amid COVID-19. / The Irrawaddy
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By The Irrawaddy 22 December 2020
The outbreak of COVID-19 that has infected hundreds of Myanmar migrants working in Thailand’s Samut Sakhon province, southwest of Bangkok, is now the kingdom’s worst. Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has instructed health authorities to come up with a working plan in case the country needs to go into full lockdown. Already, worrying signs are emerging that the Myanmar migrant population in Thailand will be targeted and discriminated against.
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In a different world, I would have filed this piece from the Jakarta bureau on a grey December afternoon, the sky pregnant with the promise of wet-season rain.
Finished, I d have hopped on a Go-Jek motorcycle taxi, headed down the road to Por Que No in central Menteng and, from the fifth-floor rooftop bar, looked out one last time at Barack Obama s old school, at the McMansions, the street carts and the slums that sit side-by-side in the sinking, polluted concrete mess that is Jakarta.
Karen Barlow and James Massola with children Sabina and twins Carlo and Giacomo on their way to Jakarta.
Infected trio face stiff action
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Thai women will pay for entry dodge
published : 16 Dec 2020 at 05:00
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The three Thai women who sparked panic in Chiang Mai after sneaking back into Thailand from Myanmar while infected with the coronavirus will face serious charges, local police said on Tuesday.
Pol Lt Gen Prachuap Wongsuk, deputy chief of Provincial Police Region 5, which covers the upper North, including Chiang Rai, said the three women were on Tuesday discharged from Nakornping Hospital in the province and it was time for them to be held accountable for their actions.
Mae Sai police station in Chiang Rai has been ordered to press charges against the trio that will stand as a warning to others not to attempt similar transgressions, he said.
5 Police from Provincial Police Region 5 undergo a screening process for Covid-19 at a health centre in Chiang Mai. (Photo: Panumet Tanraksa)
People who illegally slipped back into the country from Myanmar, found to be infected with Covid-19 and put in treatment are to be summonsed to hear legal charges after they have recovered from the illness, a senior police officer said on Tuesday.
Provincial Police Region 5 commissioner Prachuap Wongsuk said he had given the order to police at the Mae Sai station and the Mae Sai immigration office, and it would include the three people discharged from Nakornping Hospital in Chiang Mai on Tuesday.
Chiang Rai assures it is safe to visit
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Official says Covid is now under control
published : 15 Dec 2020 at 05:00
12 The yak statue at Suvarnabhumi airport wears a face mask as part of a campaign to remind people to continue wearing masks and observe social distancing to prevent transmission of Covid-19. (Photo: Wichan Charoenkiatpakul)
Chiang Rai authorities on Monday assured the rest of the kingdom that the Covid-19 situation in the northern province was under control.
Several Thais last month returned to the province from neighbouring Myanmar illegally through natural channels, skipping immigration checks. Some of them later tested positive for the coronavirus, sending officials scrambling to contain new local infections spread by the returnees.