Thailand defended its deportation of 40 Uyghur detainees to China last week as the “best solution” to avoid a backlash from Beijing, after a rights group said the move violated international law and the returnees could face torture.

Dozens of Uyghur men detained in Thailand after fleeing China may have been secretly deported to their home country, activists and rights groups said on Thursday, warning they could face torture and imprisonment on their return.

Thailand's government has repeatedly defended the secretive deportation, which came despite calls from United Nations human rights experts who said the Uyghurs would be at risk of torture, ill-treatment and "irreparable harm" if returned to China.

The State Department says the United States and other countries made repeated offers to Thailand to resettle more than three dozen Uyghur men before they were deported back to China, where rights grou

Canada and the United States offered to resettle 48 ethnic Uyghurs held in detention in Thailand over the past decade, sources told Reuters, but Bangkok took no action for fear of upsetting China, where they were covertly deported last week.

Thai minister claims the possibility of retaliation from Beijing if the Uyghur refugees are sent to another country.

Thai lawmakers, activists, and lawyers believe a group of Uyghur men detained in Thailand for more than a decade may have been deported to China early Thursday after trucks with covered windows were seen leaving a detention center and China said Chinese citizens had been repatriated from the Southeast Asian country.

China has assured Thailand that 40 Chinese Uyghurs it returned on Thursday would be looked after, Thailand's defence minister said, confirming a secretive pre-dawn deportation that the United Nations and human rights groups condemned.