Foreign evacuees packed head to toe

Migrants yearn to leave, but want their pay first

A labour officer checks lists of foreign workers who were evacuated to a Ratchaburi shelter. For some, it is the third time they have moved because of flooding—first from Don Mueang airport and then from Wat Rai Khing in Nakhon Pathom.

Up to 432 migrant workers, mainly male, from flooded factories in Ayutthaya, Pathum Thani, Nonthaburi, Nakhon Pathom and Bangkok are crammed into the centre.

"They have limited space to sleep. Their heads and feet now almost touch one another while sleeping," said Sgt Maj 1st Class Somphong Kaeowannakhadi, the centre's administration chief.

A Burmese worker, 23, whose name is pronounced in Thai as Phio Phio, cannot stand living with so many people forced to share limited facilities.

She wants to return to her home in Burma and wait there until floods subside before deciding whether to return.

But she wants her employer to pay her 9,000 baht in outstanding wages first.

A soldier enters a flooded drainage shaft and places

 sandbags in it to prevent water from getting to the

 nearby Bangchan Industrial Estate through

the drainage system. 

Phio Phio and 70 workers at a rope-making factory in Phutthamonthon Sai 4 road in Nakhon Pathom recently left a flooded evacuation centre at Wat Rai Khing in Nakhon Pathom for Ratchaburi.

Ratchaburi Institute of Skill Development is running their new home. Phio Phio and her Burmese boyfriend are gripped with fears of the floodwaters.

"We had only five minutes to flee and lost most of our assets when the flood hit," said her boyfriend, 24.

The Burmese workers make up 334 of the evacuees at the centre. The rest comprise 98 Cambodians.

Rueang, a Cambodian man aged 19, wants to go back to his home in Cambodia.

He will decide whether to return to work in Thailand when the situation returns to normal.

Rueang is contacting a van operator to take him back to Cambodia.

The young man said he could leave the evacuation centre immediately because his boss had paid him his outstanding wages.

Other workers at the centre are not so lucky.

They are being forced to stay at the centre even though they might have enough money to get home, as they want their bosses to pay them outstanding wages first.

Though the evacuation centre in Ratchaburi can take up to 500 people, officials say that with money and space restrictions, they have begun to worry they cannot receive more flood victims.

The cost of looking after evacuees is straining the centre's resources, and not enough hep is coming from employers or the community.

"Employers must come to look after them. If they can't find them new places, they should at least help provide food and clear their unpaid wages," said Sgt Maj Somphong.

"I have to admit we don't have enough money and under the state policy, we need to take care of Thais first," Sgt Maj Somphong said.

The centre relies mainly on donations. It is also supported by some employers who give food to the evacuees.

Sgt Maj Somphong said he is looking for other places in Ratchaburi to be used as evacuation centres in case more foreign workers fall victim to the floods.

The number of evacuees at the centre is causing him concern, as the centre lacks space and money to care for them all. If new employers want to hire foreign workers as staff, he would be willing to let them go.