Human rights advocates say at least some of the eight ethnic minority Uyghurs who remain in Thailand’s custody since authorities deported 40 others to China last month are at risk of the same fate.

After weeks of denying it was planning to repatriate any of the 48 Chinese Uyghurs it had held since arresting them for illegal entry in 2014, Thailand abruptly turned 40 of them over to China on Feb. 27.

The United States, United Nations and international rights groups strongly condemned Thailand for sending Uyghurs back to China. They say it violates Thailand’s international treaty obligations and, as of 2023, its own domestic law against deporting people to countries where they face a good chance of being abused or tortured.

The United States and others have accused Beijing of genocide over its treatment of the Turkic-speaking Muslim minority Uyghurs in China’s western Xinjiang province. The United Nations says their treatment may amount to crimes against humanity. Beijing denies the allegations.

The Thai and Chinese governments have said nothing about the eight Uyghurs who were not sent back to China last month. The two governments have ignored VOA requests for comment.

But rights groups tell VOA they have confirmed that all eight remain in Thai custody — three in immigration detention without charge, with the other five serving prison sentences since 2020 for robbery and attempted escape from a detention center.

They say the five in prison face the greatest risk of being deported once their prison terms end.

“After they complete their sentence, they have to come back to the immigration detention centers. That is … worrisome, because if there [is] the push from the Chinese again, these five people might be the most vulnerable group of people that will be deported again,” Kannavee Suebsang, an opposition lawmaker and deputy chair of the House of Representatives Committee on Legal Affairs, Justice and Human Rights, told VOA.

He said their sentences are due to end in 2029.

Rights groups, though, say the five could face a forced return to China much earlier than that if they are added to the lists of prisoners pardoned by Thailand’s king on royal holidays each year.

‘We are very concerned’

In a statement addressing the Feb. 27 deportations posted online the day after, the Thai government said China had in fact asked for the return of 45 “Chinese nationals,” referring to the Uyghurs. Krittaporn Semsantad, program director for the Peace Rights Foundation, a Thai rights group, says that number appears to include the five Uyghurs still in prison in Thailand — a sign, she believes, that China wants them returned as well.

“So, yes, we are very … concerned,” she told VOA. “It could be very high risk and very high chance that these five will be sent back after they finish their sentence.”

For the eight Uyghurs still in Thai custody, “the danger is not passed yet,” agreed Polat Sayim, an ethnic Uyghur living in Australia and the executive committee vice chair of the World Uyghur Congress.

Chalida Tajaroensuk, who heads Thailand’s People’s Empowerment Foundation, another local rights group, echoed their concerns.

She told VOA she visited the five Uyghurs in prison the day after the 40 were deported and said they were terrified of being forced back to China as well.

“They are afraid, and they also cried. They don’t want to go back,” she said.

‘We need to closely monitor’

The rights groups told VOA that their sources in the Thai government and inside its detained centers have told them the other three Uyghurs also remain in Thailand, in the custody of the Bureau of Immigration.

Neither China nor Thailand has explained why they were not deported along with the 40 last month. Unlike the five Uyghurs in prison, Kannavee and the rights groups say these three, who also hail from China, claimed to have come from other countries when they were first caught in Thailand, which may have helped to spare them from being sent back.

“But still we need to also closely monitor about the situation of the three, because they [have] already been disclosed, I mean their information has been disclosed that they are [from] the same group of the Uyghurs,” said Kannavee, who previously worked for the U.N.’s refugee agency in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand.

He was referring to the more than 300 Uyghurs Thailand caught entering the country illegally in 2014 as they sought to make their way to Turkey, where some had relatives, and other countries.

Of that group, Thailand deported 173 mostly women and children to Turkey in 2015 but sent 109, most of them men, back to China days later. Those sent back to China have not been heard from since.

Following the rebukes over last month’s deportations, the Thai government said Beijing had assured it that the Uyghurs would be treated well and that Bangkok could send envoys to check up on them regularly.

Rights groups and opposition lawmakers such as Kannavee, though, say they take little comfort in Beijing’s promises and still hope to persuade the Thai government to let the eight Uyghurs who remain in its custody settle elsewhere.

‘We don’t have a country’

Thai officials initially claimed that no other country had offered to take in the Uyghurs but later acknowledged that some had, without naming them, and that Thailand turned them down for fear that China might retaliate.

The Reuters news agency has reported that Australia, Canada and the United States all offered to resettle the Uyghurs.

A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told VOA on Sunday it had been working with Thailand for years to avoid their return to China, “including by consistently and repeatedly offering to resettle the Uyghurs in other countries, including, at times, the United States.”

Sayim, of the World Uyghur Congress, said those countries should keep their offers open for the eight Uyghurs Thailand still holds, and continue putting pressure on the Thai government to accept.

“We don’t have [a] country. That’s why we have to ask European countries if they can help. … Always we asking [the] U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, Australia if they could make a decision and take them,” he said. “The Thai government shouldn’t give these people back to China. They know it’s not good when they go back.”