Mass graves at suspected human trafficking detention camps have been found by Malaysian police in towns and villages bordering Thailand, the country’s home minister said Sunday, with media reports suggesting they could contain hundreds of bodies.

Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told reporters officials are determining whether the graves were of human trafficking victims.

"But we don't know how many there are. We are probably going to find more bodies," Zahid was quoted as saying by The Star newspaper.

According to media reports, the mass graves were believed to contain bodies of hundreds of migrants from Burma and Bangladesh.

The Malay-language newspaper Utusan Malaysia, quoting an unnamed source, said about 30 mass graves had been found containing "hundreds of skeletons".

Also citing sources, The Star had said graves were "believed to contain nearly 100 Rohingya migrants", referring to the Muslim ethnic minority from Burma.

The reports said the graves were found near Padang Besar and Wang Kelian, two towns along the Thai border in the Malaysian state of Perlis.

“They have been there for quite some time. I suspect the camps have been operating for at least five years,” Ahmad Zahid said.

A police spokeswoman declined to comment saying a news conference on the issue would be held on Monday.

Second mass grave discovery this month

A police official who declined to be identified said police commandos and forensic experts from the capital, Kuala Lumpur, were at the site but it was not clear how many graves and bodies had been found.

“Of course I believe that there are Malaysians involved,” Ahmad Zahid said, when asked on possible involvement of locals in the incident.

Northern Malaysia is on a route for smugglers bringing people to Southeast Asia by boat from Burma, most of them Rohingyas, who say they are fleeing persecution, and people from Bangladesh seeking work.

Smugglers have also used southern Thailand and Utusan Malaysia and police believe the discovery had a connection to mass graves found on the Thai side of the border this month.

Twenty-six bodies were exhumed from a grave in Thailand’s Songkhla province, over the border from Perlis, near a camp with suspected links to human trafficking in early May.

Thailand began a crackdown on human trafficking and smuggling following the discovery, which appears to have thrown regional trafficking routes into chaos.

With traffickers apparently abandoning their human cargo at sea, boats filled with hundreds of starving migrants from the two countries have sought desperately to land in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, which have turned them away.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday pledged assistance and ordered the navy to rescue thousands adrift at sea.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)