China will fly home about 200 of its nationals found in scam-running compounds on the Thai-Myanmar border, a Thai security official said on Tuesday, as part of a multinational effort to crack down on illegal online operations run from the region.

China began repatriating 200 of its citizens who worked in cyber fraud operations in Myanmar, the first batch returning from the centers international groups have said are a nexus of human rights abuses and criminal activity.

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,

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 exhausted young men lie in an open-sided detention center in a seedy Myanmar border town, sweating through thick tropical heat by day and prey to clouds of mosquitoes by night.