Police discover two more human smuggling camps

Police found two more camps on Tuesday believed to have held human trafficking victims in southern Thailand - one recently abandoned and the other containing a buried skeleton - days after the grim discovery of 26 bodies at a separate location exposed a thriving human smuggling network in the country.

"We will keep searching, because this means the traffickers are still on the run and taking people with them," said Amphon Buarubporn, the commander of police for Songkla province. Teams of police dismantled the camp's eight huts and shelters made of freshly cut wood, where a cellphone charger and clothing were strewn about in signs of an apparent recent evacuation.

Tuesday's discovery was part of a mission to find survivors - or bodies - that activists say are hidden in the mountains, five days after authorities dug up the 26 corpses at a nearby camp along the Thai-Malaysian border. Authorities said the camps are believed to have been used by a network that smuggled ethnic Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and migrants from Bangladesh and then abused them, held them captive until their families could pay ransoms.