Cambodian workers are increasingly looking to illegally cross back into Thailand for work, a labor rights group said on Thursday, after a report showed more
Covid-19 is not the only pressing public health issue for migrant workers and their families. The pandemic is raising the risks of other, indirect health impacts that can have lasting effects even after the outbreak ends, writes Future Forum fellow Thong Sariputta.
September has seen a turnaround in some migrant workers’ fortunes, but they said they still weren’t vaccinated and feared infection, and their earnings had merely returned to barely getting by.
Some migrant workers, returning from Thailand to escape a Covid-19 surge and joblessness there, say they are finding the transition back to their hometowns challenging due to quarantine, debt and difficulty finding opportunities.
Cambodian returnees from Thailand have surged since the reopening of borders on Friday, local officials said, with migrants trucked in from checkpoints to expanded quarantine centers.
Hundreds of migrant workers poured back into the country on Friday as its borders to Covid-19-hit Thailand reopened, and the flow is expected to continue in the coming days as many Cambodians face difficulties in the neighboring country.
Border province officials say they have prepared new quarantine facilities as Cambodia is on the cusp of reopening its border to jobless, Covid-wary migrant workers in Thailand.
Hundreds of Cambodians have been put in tents in the Thai border area, with many more arriving every day, as some have attempted to cross uncleared minefields amid border closures due to Covid-19, a local official said.
Heng Sreynop says she lives in a red zone in Thailand, and fears Covid-19. She says she understands why the borders need to be closed, but it adds to the pressure. “If we wanted to escape, we couldn’t escape. We don’t know where to escape.”
More than 300 Cambodians came through the O’Smach checkpoint in Oddar Meanchey — almost as many as had returned this whole month — ahead of the closing of borders with Thailand, while other border provinces prepared curfews and lockdown restrictions.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has warned two political analysts over criticizing the government’s foreign policy, one by name and the other by saying there was already a warrant out for his arrest.
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