SAMUT PRAKAN: Fourteen Myanmar workers at a factory in Covid-19-plagued Samut Sakhon province were rushed off the premises and abandoned in neighbouring Samut Prakarn's Bang Phli district on Tuesday night.
Police at Bang Kaew station were informed of their presence about 11pm. They were left with their bags on Soi Green Lake, at the entrance to Green Lake housing estate off Bang Na-Trat Road in tambon Racha Thewa.
Ony six of them had passports.
They told police they had worked at the STI Precision Co plastic-moulding plant in Muang district, Samut Sakhon, for about a month. Personnel staff at the company told them on Tuesday evening that police were to inspect the plant and they had to leave the premises.
They said 23 workers were to be transported from their workplace to Rayong province.
The dumped employees told police that some workers were dropped off from their vehicle on the way. The remaining 14 were taken to Rayong, where they were to be left in a forest.
They refused to stay there. The driver asked if any of them had a relative or friend who could accommodate them.
They said some relatives and friends worked and lived at a factory on Soi Green Lake in Bang Phli.
However, the factory owner rejected them for fear of breaking the law, and their having come from Samut Sakhon, the epicentre of the latest Covid-19 outbreak. So their driver dumped them at the entrance of the Green Lake housing estate.
The workers told police they had not been tested for Covid-19 and were desperately in need of help.
Local health officials took sample swabs and quarantined them. Police were contacting their employer.