Thailand said Friday it had agreed with Myanmar and China to repatriate thousands of alleged scam centre workers stranded in camps at the Thai-Myanmar border, part of a crackdown on transnational crime.

Hundreds of foreign nationals pulled out of scam compounds in Myanmar during a crackdown on centres run by criminal gangs have little food, scant healthcare and filthy toilets in the remote militia camp they have been taken to,

A new crackdown on online scam centers has led to over 7,000 people from around the world being held in a Myanmar border town awaiting repatriation

"I swear to God I need help," said the man quietly on the other end of the line. The Ethiopian, who calls himself Mike, said he is being held with 450 others in a building inside Myanmar, along the country's border with Thailand.

Thousands of foreigners freed from online scam-operating centres in Myanmar are stuck in limbo on the border with Thailand after a multinational crackdown on the compounds run by criminal gangs, three sources told Reuters on Monday.

An airlift carrying more than 1,000 Chinese nationals who had worked at online scam centers in eastern Myanmar began Thursday, after the rescued workers were taken across the border to Thailand and put on chartered flights to China.

Hundreds of exhausted young men lie in an open-sided detention centre in a seedy Myanmar border town, sweating through thick tropical heat by day and prey to clouds of mosquitoes by night. - Struggling to cope - The United Nations estimates that as many as 120,