At least 20 Myanmar migrant workers were among the 170 people killed during severe flooding in eight of Thailand’s southern provinces in late November, migrant worker groups from Myanmar in Thailand told DVB.
Twelve undocumented Myanmar workers were among the 20 found dead inside a locked house in Hat Yai, a field coordinator with the Hat Yai-based Labour Protection Network told DVB.
“Those 12 Myanmar people had just arrived in Thailand through illegal channels and were kept and locked in one house by a broker. So they couldn’t get out during flooding and everyone inside died,” said Ba Yi, the field coordinator at the Labour Protection Network.
Thai officials stated that Hat Yai District in Songkhla Province was among the hardest hit regions in southern Thailand after experiencing a “once-in-300-years” flood caused by intense rainfall and a rare cyclonic storm.
Thailand’s Public Health Ministry reported on Dec. 1 that the death toll in Songkhla Province was 140 out of the total 170 killed across eight southern provinces.
“These are just the bodies found. There are others swept away by the water whose whereabouts remain unknown. We believe there are Myanmar casualties in areas we couldn’t reach,” Ba Yi added.
The Thai government has announced that it is providing two million Thai Baht (THB) in compensation to the family of each person who died in the flooding.
Rachada Dhnadirek, the assistant to the Thai Prime Minister’s Office, said on Dec. 2 that each affected household would receive 9,000 THB in assistance with over 877 million THB already distributed to over 97,000 households.
Ba Yi said that Myanmar migrant workers are struggling to access Thai government assistance.
“The government can only provide compensation if there is proof of death by flooding, a hospital examination, and DNA matching with surviving family members. Household registration documents were swept away, and some bodies have decomposed so much they can’t be examined. Even Thai people are dissatisfied. It’s even more difficult for migrant workers, some of them have no documentation,” Ba Yi said.
He added that migrant worker assistance groups provided support during the flooding by distributing food and essential supplies to more than 2,000 Myanmar migrants. Many migrant workers in remote areas still have not received any assistance, according to Ba Yi.
Thailand remains a major destination for Myanmar migrant workers, with numbers increasing following the 2021 military coup and surging further after the 2024 military conscription law.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) states that 2,308,166 Myanmar nationals were registered as migrant workers in Thailand in March 2024. The number of undocumented migrant workers from Myanmar in Thailand remains unknown but is estimated to be over double the official number.
