By Thai Newsroom Reporters
SIXTY LAOTIANS have been patiently waiting to return to their home country through a border checkpoint which is currently closed.
The 60 male and female Laotians have called it quits from jobs in Thailand and decided to return home via Banna Kraseng border checkpoint in Loei province, across the border from Xayaburi province in northwestern Laos.
The ex-migrant workers have been renting a row of shophouses to stay in the neighborhood of the border checkpoint waiting for it to reopen. None was found to have entered Thai territory in illegal fashion.
Immigration officials were not available to tell how soon the border checkpoint which has been temporarily closed due to the pandemic situation will reopen. It might be as soon as early next week, they commented but could not officially confirm.
In an unrelated development, five Laotians were recently arrested in Nakhon Phanom while waiting near Mekong River for an approaching boat to shuttle them across and get to Khammouane province in central Laos.
Unlike the 60 ex-migrant workers near the Loei border checkpoint, the five Laotians who had been hired for jobs in Chanthaburi were found undocumented and faced with illegal entry charges.
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Top: A Mekong river boat sailing on calm waters. Photo: Radek Kucharski (CC BY 2.0)
