WANG KELIAN: Barbed wire and a human jawbone hinted at the brutality in suspected people-smuggling camps in Malaysia as police Tuesday began the grisly task of exhuming dozens of graves along the Thai border.

Police escorted journalists on a gruelling hike into a thickly jungled state park in northern Malaysia where authorities have found 28 such camps in the latest grim turn in Southeast Asia’s migrant crisis.

Fearing possible attack from armed traffickers lurking in the woods, police advised reporters to hit the ground if they heard any gunshots during the four-hour round-trip slog up a remote mountain.

Via a jungle path that was clearly well-trodden, reporters were led to a single small camp in a forest clearing.