China can blame nobody but itself for opening up the Mekong that was once crammed with treacherous cascades, according to Thai immigration officials on the Golden Triangle, where the borders of Burma, Laos and Thailand converge on the Mekong that originates in China.

They were commenting on recent reports of more than 300 Uighurs from China’s Muslim-dominant Sinkiang (Xinjiang) province being detained in Thailand:

• 220, including 78 men, 60 women and 82 children, on 12 March, in Songkhla, one of the kingdom’s southern provinces (Bangkok Post)
• Another 112, later in Sa Kaew near the Thai-Cambodian border (RFA)

According to an informed source in Maesai, most of the Uighurs are coming down the Mekong by boats. “They get off the boats when they are approaching a checkpoint, and, conducted by a guide, will skirt it on foot, then climb back into their boats when they get to a safe distance,” he said. “They are later discharged at Muong Mom on the Laotian side of the Golden Triangle. Afterward they are carried across the river to Chiang Saen (Chiangrai province).”
Trafficking of Uighurs, according to him, are different from that of the North Koreans. “The North Koreans usually announce themselves upon arrival on the Thai soil, so they can be detained by the police and picked up by the South Koreans later,” he said. “But Uighurs never do that. They are just quietly transported by their contacts to the South (of Thailand), where sizeable Muslim populations are located. From there, they are taken to other countries.”

Authorities initials said they believed the groups were Turkish, because they claimed to be from Turkey, reported Bangkok Post.