Some villagers today recalled having seen people believed to be from the Rohingya community in Kampung Wang Kelian several months ago, usually in mosques.

One of them, Ayub Mohd Affendy, 25, said he had seen the Rohingya, some of them in their teens, in mosques and that they were shabbily dressed, thin and weak.

"They usually moved about individually or, at the most, in twos," he told Bernama today.

He said they would devour food and drink much water, and they were a pitiful sight then.

Ayub said he did not know where they went after visiting the mosques.

Another villager, Zulhasman Isman, 46, said it did not cross his mind at all that such a large gravesite of alleged victims of human traffickers would be found in Perlis.

Up to 139 graves of alleged victims of human traffickers have been found in Bukit Wang Burma in Wang Kelian, Perlis, close to the Malaysia-Thailand border.

"My wife is scared to go out alone at night for fear of whom she might bump into," he said.

He said it was hoped that the authorities would step up security along the border to prevent more illegal immigrants crossing over into Malaysia.

Some 1,158 Bangladesh nationals and members of the Rohingya community also arrived by boat in Langkawi earlier this month.

There have also been reports that up to 7,000 migrants were in boats at sea waiting to land in Malaysia or Indonesia.

- Bernama