SA KAEO, April 9 (TNA) – Migrant workers from Thailand’s
neighbouring countries are heading homes to celebrate Songkran festival with their
relatives.
Huge crowds of Cambodian workers queued up at the Ban Khlong
Luek border checkpoint in Aranyaprathet district of Sa Kaeo province to cross
the border to Poipet city of Cambodia.
Pol Col Benjapol Rodsawat, immigration chief of Sa Kaeo,
said the immigration chief of Poipet asked Thai immigration officers to
facilitate the return of Cambodian workers because earlier many Cambodian
workers had lost baggage after they had Cambodian porters carry their bags
across the border in advance while they had had to wait in long queues at the
Thai border checkpoint.
In response, more Thai immigration officers, including
detectives, were deployed to check outbound Cambodian workers. The service also
happened in front of the border checkpoint office in order to speed up the
departure of the migrant workers.
Pol Col Benjapol said that since April 5 nearly 20,000
Cambodian workers had left the country through the Ban Khlong Luek checkpoint.
He expected the traffic to peak on April 12 when the Songkran long holiday
officially starts.
Meanwhile, many Myanmar workers were crossing the border
back to their homeland through the Mae Sai border checkpoint in Mae Sai
district of Chiang Rai province.
Many migrant workers there said that they felt grateful
towards the Thai government’s exemption of cross-border fees on April 5-30 as
they had to return home to celebrate the Songkran festival and later revisit
Thailand for work.
Despite the heavy traffic, soldiers, immigration police and
customs officials were carefully checking the workers’ baggage to prevent drug
smuggling.(TNA)
