Malaysia said Thursday it believes 139 bodies are buried in marked graves at remote camps used by people-smugglers on the Thai border, wrapped in white cloth after Muslim rites.

The abandoned sites were discovered on the weekend, escalating a crisis that erupted earlier this month when a Thai crackdown on trafficking networks left thousands of desperate people stranded at sea on rickety boats.

Bangladesh plans to relocate thousands of Rohingya who have spent years in refugee camps near the Myanmar border to a southern island, an official said Wednesday, as the region faces a human trafficking crisis.

The government has started planning the relocation to Hatiya island in the Bay of Bengal in a move backed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said additional secretary Amit Kumar Baul.

Militants opened fire on two Bangladeshi peacekeepers in Mali's Bamako on Monday, killing one, the second attack within days in the capital of what is considered the most dangerous U.N. mission in the world.

One of the peacekeepers, both ranked as privates, died on the scene and the other was rushed immediately to hospital with bullet wounds after the ambush on their SUV, Bangladesh army spokesman Nur Islam said Tuesday.

Bangladesh on Monday banned an Islamist militant group suspected of involvement in the murders of atheist bloggers that sparked protests in Dhaka and outrage around the world, an official said.

The Home Ministry's move to outlaw the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) comes almost a week after police asked the government to ban the group, suspecting it of being behind the deaths of three bloggers this year.

Two members of a banned Bangladeshi radical group have been arrested for trying to recruit young Muslims to fight with the Islamic State organisation, police said Monday.

Aminul Islam Baig, 40, and Shakib bin Kamal, 30, were both arrested on Sunday night during raids at two addresses in Dhaka in which officers also recovered jihadist literature and computer equipment, police added.

A total of 139 grave sites and 28 human-trafficking camps have been found in a remote northern Malaysian border region, the country's top police official told reporters Monday.

National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar revealed the findings at a press conference a day after the government announced the discovery of camps and graves, the first such sites found in Malaysia since a regional human-trafficking crisis erupted earlier this month.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Sunday slammed the country's economic migrants, many of whom are stranded in dire conditions at sea, calling them "mentally sick" and accusing them of hurting the country's image.

"There is sufficient work for them, still they are leaving the country in such disastrous ways," Hasina was quoted as saying by the state-run Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha news agency -- her first comments on the migrant crisis in Southeast Asia.

A group of migrants recently rescued by Myanmar will be deported to Bangladesh, officials confirmed Saturday, as the United Nations chief called on regional nations to prioritize saving the lives of those still stranded at sea.

Southeast Asia is currently battling an exodus of boat people fleeing persecution and poverty, with up to 2,000 vulnerable migrants thought to be stranded in the Bay of Bengal, many at the mercy of ruthless people smugglers.

A senior U.S. diplomat on Friday urged Myanmar to extend "citizenship" to the oppressed Rohingya minority to address an ongoing migrant crisis that has hit Southeast Asia, leaving thousands stranded at sea.

More than 3,500 migrants have swum to shore or been rescued off the coasts of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh since a Thai crackdown in early May on human-trafficking threw the illicit trade into chaos.

Leading authors, including Salman Rushdie and fellow Booker prize winners Margaret Atwood and Yann Martell, called on Bangladesh's government Friday to put an end to a spate of deadly attacks on atheist bloggers.

Three bloggers have been hacked to death by suspected Islamist militants since February, with the latest victim, Ananta Bijoy Das, attacked with machetes during morning rush hour in the city of Sylhet earlier this month.