China has begun repatriating its nationals, who have been transferred to Mae Sot district of Tak province from Myanmar’s Myawaddy border township, with the first group leaving on a China Southern Airlines flight at 11.40am today.
Three more flights are due to return people to China today, many of whom are believed to have been duped into working in call centres in Myawaddy.
Altogether 16 chartered flights have been arranged by the Chinese government to repatriate 1,041 of its citizens today, tomorrow and Saturday. The planes will fly from Mae Sot airport to Xishuangbanna in southern China.
The Chinese are among 1,219 people of various nationalities rescued from call centres in Shwe Kokko and KK Park, with the help of the Karen Border Guard Force and Burmese government, following heavy pressure from Thailand and China.
China’s assistant minister for public security, Liu Zhongyi, has played a key role in persuading the Thai and Burmese governments to take concrete action against Chinese-run call centres, which have been preying on victims in China, Thailand and beyond with impunity for the past several years.
Liu has been in Thailand and Myanmar in the past two weeks, talking with top-ranking Thai and Burmese security officers about measures to deal with the call centres.
Liu has also been instrumental in arranging the quick repatriation of Chinese nationals.
The Thai government has set up a National Referral Mechanism facility in Mae Sot, for the screening of those transferred from Myawaddy.
Additional officials and biometric devices have been deployed to speed up the process, especially for Chinese nationals being flown home in the next three days.
Pol Maj-Gen Panthana Nutchanart, deputy commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, said that more sign boards have been erected along the highway from Tak to Mae Sot, at the immigration checkpoint and at the Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge, to warn people about the risks of crossing into Myanmar and to deter them from doing so via Mae Sot.
