Nine families have said they would build homes near relatives in other areas of the camp, according to the province’s Governor Suebsak Iamvijarn.

Suebsak joined non-government organisations, Army personnel, police and related agencies to begin the rebuilding project on Wednesday as construction started on the first three domiciles.

The fire on the night of July 5 at the camp’s fifth living area left 300 Karen refugees homeless and caused damage to 36 other huts.

Ban Mai Nai Soi camp houses about 8,000 Karen refugees who have fled fighting in Myanmar. There are 20 living zones in the camp.

The construction of the 33 houses is scheduled to be completed by the end of the month and is funded by a Bt1-million budget provided by the Border Consortium (TBC) non-government organisation.

Soldiers, border-patrol defence volunteers and Muang Mae Hong Son police will help refugees to build the shelters out of natural materials.

A domicile with less than five residents will be built for Bt15,980, while those with more than five residents will be built for Bt21,460.

The structures will be at least five metres away from each other for fire prevention and to maintain order.

The residents of the houses in Tambon Pa Or Don Chai had to move their belongings to higher grounds, away from the 30cm-deep intruding water.

Officials are monitoring the situation and bracing for potential flooding of more riverside homes.

Following days of heavy downpours brought by tropical storm Talas, floodwater covered some 200 rai (32 hectares) of rice fields in Na Khun and Khao Wong districts of the northeastern province of Kalasin on Thursday. Farmers were worried as their rice paddies, which had been heavily flooded for days, started to rot. They noted that neither local administrators nor related agencies had yet visited to assess the damages or provide aid.

Phrompong Pimpao, a farmer in Na Khu’s Tambon Noen Najan, urged authorities to help him and fellow rice farmers who were affected by “the flood that caused the area to resemble a freshwater lake”.

The girl was pronounced as dead at 1.30pm on Thursday at Pathum Thani Hospital after falling into a coma.

An arrest warrant for assault causing a serious injury was issued for the suspect, Ekkachai Reungrak, after the girl’s uncle filed a police complaint last Friday, but he could now face an additional charge of murder.

The girl, who had been bedridden since birth due to autism, had been under the care of her grandmother, who fell sick on July 9. She was subsequently placed in the care of her mother who had remarried and lived with Ekkachai and their three children at Klong Chan Flat.

After the couple failed to return the girl to her grandmother’s care on July 12 as scheduled, her uncle checked on her and found that she had been hospitalised with a serious head injury from apparently inflicted by blows to the head. He then filed a police complaint.

Ekkachai reportedly admitted to police that he had assaulted the girl on impulse and did not know that she had a particularly fragile skull due to her condition. He also apologised for the incident while insisting that he had not been inebriated on the day of the assault but had been under a lot of stress and angry.

Ekkachai does not have a prior criminal history and his neighbours told police that there had not been incidents of domestic violence in the family before.

The Phuket Treasury Office yesterday confirmed that they are just clearing out the landscape and did not aim to destroy the building.

“We are beautifying the landscape by clearing out old trees and the mess around the building under the governor’s policy of ‘Keep Phuket Clean by Our Hand and Heart’,” said Kasempoom Weerasamai of the Phuket Treasury Office.

The building is owned by an ex-manager of Chartered Bank in Phuket Town, which was relaunched as the Peranakannitat Museum in May by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.

Members of the public requested officials to transform the area into a public park or museum and preserve the building for the next generation.

However, the Treasury Office announced that no plans for renovation or development are currently in the pipeline.

Regional police officers were instructed in a videoconference with high-ranking officials to monitor and proceed with legal actions against people who make posts promoting drinking.

Speaking from Royal Thai Police headquarters, national police chief advisor, Pol General Weerachai Songmetta, noted that five Nonthaburi-based celebrities who posed with alcoholic drinks to encourage others to consume booze had been investigated.

He said that he knows other famous people are doing the same and warns that they should remove their posts from all social media channels before police gather evidence and take action against them.

Weerachai said police must reintroduce this measure because of the growing use of online media as an advertising channel inviting people to drink.

Dr Nipon Chinanonwet, director of the Office of Alcohol Control Committee, joined Weerachai in the videoconference.

A recent study found that approximately 30 per cent of people studied started to drink alcohol after seeing images of their favourite celebrities posed with drinks.

Police would punish first-time offenders with a Bt50,000 fine and repeat offenders with a Bt200,000 fine, Weerachai said. Those providing information leading to an arrest would get one-fourth of the fine money as a reward, he added.

Weerachai also reported that alcoholic beverage control measures taken by police during Asarnha Puja Day and Buddhist Lent Day had seen a drop in the number of shop owners illegally selling alcoholic drinks. A police operation in six provinces had searched 151 shops and found only 14 violations of the law.

Section 32 of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act bans anyone from advertising alcoholic drinks and from showing the names and logos of alcoholic drinks to promote them. The law made headlines in 2015 when health activists called on authorities to investigate a beer company’s alleged social-media campaign. The campaign featured seven celebrities, including Pakorn “Dome” Lam and Virithipa “VJ Woonsen” Pakdeeprasong, posting images of themselves with bottles of the brew.

Meanwhile, provincial police chief Pol Maj-General Theerapol Jindaluang said authorities would not bring the suspect to re-enact the crime until they could assure his safety.

Police arrested woodcutter Supornchai Noonoi, 31, at 5am on Wednesday after tests of his DNA matched semen samples found on the girl’s clothes.

After police discovered that Supornchai had not shown up for work after the crime and that he had arrest warrants pertaining to three other rape cases in Khon Kaen in 2008, 2015 and last year, they inspected his room and collected a DNA sample.

It was reported that he had often joked to get the girl’s attention when he bought groceries from a shop near the girl’s home.

Police also collected DNA samples from 25 other men living in the neighborhood.

The investigation found that Supornchai had fled to Chon Buri’s Panat Nikhom district where he allegedly stole a motorcycle and then fled back to Ban Pho, where he was arrested.

Supornchai also allegedly broke into a house and raped another 30-year-old woman in Panat Nikhom.

Police have said that Supornchai admitted to breaking into the 14-year-old’s house at about 2am, raping the girl who had been asleep, suffocating her to death, and then putting her clothes back on and arranging her in a sleeping pose to conceal the crime.

He has been charged with rape, murder and intruding into a home during the night.

The girl was home alone on the night of the crime. Her mother returned home at 4am found the girl’s dead body.

A Chachoengsao-based social media page initially speculated that she had died when part of her dental braces slipped out of place and became stuck in her throat. However, police said an initial medical examination found nothing lodged in her throat and they later determined that she had been raped and killed.

The Royal Cremation of His Majesty the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej will be held during October 25-29.

Deputy Prime Minister General Tanasak Patimapragorn on Wednesday presided over a meeting of the committee tasked with organising the exhibition after the late monarch’s Royal Cremation.

The committee resolved to set up various sub-committees to be in charge of various parts of the exhibition.

According to Culture Minister Veera Rojpojanarat, the exhibition held at the Song Tham pavilion would be in two parts; one about the late monarch’s life and work and the other about the late monarch’s work in foreign countries to boost international ties as well as display honours and awards he received from other countries.

The Labour Rights Promotion Network Foundation (LPN) revealed that they had been contacted by Myanmar migrant workers who were tricked by agents that they would find them a job in Thailand via the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) system. However, they were instead brought to the Kingdom illegally and many were kept in an apartment without work. LPN director Sompong Srakaew said that 119 Myanmar migrant workers were victims, as the agent promised them they would find work in Thailand via the MoU system and they had paid 500,000 kyat (Bt12,000) for passports. Biggest case of deception However, when they arrived in Thailand, they were locked in an apartment at Tambon Bang Torat of Samut Sakhon’s Mueang District and most of them did not get a job. Sompong said the LPN assisted the migrants by helping them report to police at Bang Torat Police Station and investigated whether the crime consituted human trafficking. Samak Thabthani, LPN coordinator, said that the workers said 59 of them had got a job, but 64 of them were still unemployed. Among 119 of the workers, there were 40 female workers and no children. They were all told that they will get a legal job in Thailand, but instead they were stranded by the agent. Samak said the workers were brought into Thailand illegally, so they were all having trouble finding legal work because they did not have valid visa. “The Social Development and Human Security, police, and LPN are now considering the options to help these workers, whether authorities will help them to register and find work or deport them,” he said. “This is the biggest case of migrant workers being deceived, but it was not the first one. Similar cases have been reported recently and many migrant workers are the victims of such crime.” It has been reported that the police have arrested some of the agents and officers were now tracking down the mastermind. Meanwhile in Srakaew, local authorities, police, the military, the private sector and the Cambodian Consulate in Thailand discussed the implementation of the Migrant Worker Emergency Decree and ta new border crossing at Ban Khaodin in Khlong Hat District. Thai officials asked the Cambodian counterparts to inform Cambodian people about the new regulations to work in Thailand. Cambodian deputy consul general in Thailand Nget Bunly said that the Cambodian authorities will work closely with the Thai counterpart on the issue. Sa Kaeo Provincial Immigration superintendent Pol Lt Colonel Benjaphol Rotsawat said Cambodian workers had started to come back to Thailand, after they had returned to Cambodia to register for passports to work in Thailand legally.

THE CRIMINAL COURT yesterday convicted human traffickers implicated in a massive network, including senior military officer Manas Kongpan and leading local politicians in the South, for their roles in the trade of modern-day slaves in a case that ignited attention on the regional migrant crisis two years ago.

The court spent all of yesterday reading a 500-page verdict on 102 defendants involved in trafficking migrants, most of whom were ethnic Rohingya people from Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The involvement of security officers, notably Lt-General Manas, an Army special adviser, apparently angered Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha as reporters asked if their roles in the crimes had damaged the military’s reputation.

“Do not forget that we have 400,000 to 500,000 troops. Manas is just one person. Can he alone ruin the whole Army?” Prayut responded furiously. However, he said he had no idea how the court’s verdict would affect Thailand’s reputation regarding human trafficking.

Manas and several other security officials and politicians from local administrations in the southern Satun province, were arrested in 2015 following the discovery of a mass grave in a jungle shelter in the border district of Sadao, which traffickers had used to hide their victims.

Prayut, who led the Army to topple the elected civilian government in 2014, asked the public not to blame the entire military for the trafficking crimes while referencing the former Army general. “There are many people in this human trafficking network. Manas alone is just part of [the network],” Prayut said yesterday before the court issued its verdict.

An Army captain was also accused in the case but Manas was the highest ranking officer involved the trial. He climbed the career ladder when Prayut was Army commander between 2010 and 2014 and was promoted from major general to lieutenant general after the 2014 military coup.

The court found that Manas and Pol Colonel Charn U-thong and Pol Sub-Lieutenant Narathon Samphan were guilty of trafficking and organising a transborder crime syndicate.

The case involved 103 defendants but one of them died during the trial. As of press time yesterday, the court had read verdicts for 38 defendants with more than two dozen found guilty for roles in human trafficking and bringing illegal migrants into the Kingdom and sheltering them.

Ten defendants, including two police officers, were acquitted based on insufficient evidence.

The court summarised the accounts of witnesses regarding the behaviour of the defendants, specifying the responsibilities of suspects who ran the Rohingya detention camp in the Khao Kaew mountain in Sadao district, from where the Rohingya were smuggled to Malaysia.

The verdict also dwelled on witness accounts about defendants who were in charge of food and water supplies and who beat up trafficking victims.

The court said it had been told that not enough food and water was provided to the detained Rohingya, who faced death threats designed to prevent them from using their phones or fleeing the camp. The court also said it had been told that victims were beaten up when they asked for more food and water.

Another well-known defendant, Pajjuban Aungkachotephan, who is widely known as “Ko Tong”, is the former chief of Satun Provincial Administrative Organisation. Public prosecutors accused him of using private Andaman Sea islands, close to tourist spots such as Koh Lipe, to shift boatloads of migrants to the mainland, where they were packed into lorries and taken to camps straddling the Malaysian border.

The court found him guilty of human trafficking, organising a cross-border crime syndicate and bringing illegal migrants into the Kingdom.

Trafficking of Rohingya to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia roused international outrage years ago as so-called “boat people” from border areas of Bangladesh and Myanmar were subjected to inhumane treatment while being trafficked in countries across the region.

A major crackdown on human trafficking in 2014 resulted in Thailand being upgraded from the lowest class of Tier 3 in the US Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report 2014-2015.