Thailand's PM offers help in trafficking probe of Myanmar refugees
UN and US called for probe into media reports that Rohingya refugees held in secret camps
Thailand will help the UN and the United States with any investigation into reports that Thai immigration officials moved Myanmar refugees into human-trafficking rings, the prime minister says.
The UN and the US had called on Friday for an investigation into reports by the South China Morning Post and Reuters, published on Thursday, that revealed a clandestine policy to remove Rohingya refugees from Thai immigration detention centres and deliver them to human traffickers waiting at sea.
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who chairs a government committee on human trafficking, declined to comment on the findings.
"I cannot comment on the Rohingya issue and reaction as this is the responsibility of the Foreign Ministry to handle," she said.
"The ministry will liaise with the United States and the UN to help with any investigation they need."
The Rohingya are stateless Muslims from Myanmar. Clashes between Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists exploded in Myanmar last year, making 140,000 people homeless, most of them Rohingya.