Rights groups call for protection of Rohingyas in India and Indonesia

22 Feb 2011

BANGKOK (AlertNet) – Rights groups have urged Thailand to investigate claims that its navy pushed a group of “boat people” from Myanmar’s embattled Rohingya minority back out to sea in rickety vessels, two years after similar allegations surfaced.

The groups also called on Indonesia and India to protect Rohingyas who fled by sea to the nearby countries in recent weeks.

The Rohingyas are a Muslim minority from Rakhine State in the west of predominantly Buddhist Myanmar. Rights groups say they suffer much abuse and are denied free movement, education and employment by the military junta. They are also denied citizenship.

A group of 91 Rohingyas with little food and water landed in India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands in early February in what the BBC said was an engine-less boat. The group told Indian police they had been set adrift by the Thai navy.

The Thai Foreign Ministry has denied this and said it deported a group of 91 Rohingyas (who reached Thailand in January) at the Thai-Myanmar border crossing in Ranong province in southern Thailand “which was in line with their wish”.

Kitty McKinsey, a spokeswoman for the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR, told AlertNet:

“Based on the information we have now it seems likely that the 91 who are in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are the same 91 who were intercepted in Thailand on 22nd January.”

“We don’t know exactly [how] they would’ve gotten from Thailand to the Nicobar Islands.”

Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are calling for Thailand to investigate the case.

“Thailand’s blanket denial that 91 Rohingya deportees were pushed back to sea fails to explain their arrival in the Andaman and Nicobar islands,” Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“The Thai government should promptly and impartially investigate which officials were responsible for towing migrants out to sea and cutting them loose.”

ANOTHER GROUP FOUND DRIFTING OFF ACEH

Last week, Indonesian fishermen found another 129 Rohingyas drifting in a boat off the coast of Aceh. Like the group in Andaman and Nicobar islands, they were said to be starving and severely dehydrated when found.

They have been at sea for about three weeks, according to Indonesian officials.

In a statement, Amnesty International asked Thailand, India and Indonesia to act on “their obligations under international human rights and customary international law” including helping determine if they qualify for refugee status.

In a similar incident two years ago, the Thai navy was accused of towing 992 Rohingya boat people to sea before abandoning them to their fate with little food or water in boats without engines. Many were found off the coast of Indonesia but hundreds were feared to have died. Thailand promised to investigate but said the results were inconclusive.

"The situation of the Rohingyas would be concerning enough just considering their persecution in Myanmar and their precarious state on the high seas," Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty’s researcher for southeast Asia, told AlertNet.

"When factoring in what happened to them at the hands of Thai authorities in late 2008 and early 2009 -- and that similar unlawful and inhuman treatment is being alleged again -- their situation is even more alarming. The problem is rooted in Myanmar but implicates the region, but two years on we're no closer to accountability or a solution."

Rights groups say thousands of Rohingyas flee Myanmar for Malaysia and Bangladesh each year. Malaysia is home to 85,000 refugees and asylum seekers from Myanmar although it is unknown how many are Rohingyas.

Aid groups estimate over 300,000 Rohingyas live in Bangladesh, mostly in horrendous conditions at makeshift camps, living in mud huts covered in plastic sheets and tree branches.

Thailand has around 150,000 refugees, mainly from eastern Myanmar, in nine camps along the Thai-Myanmar border.

Source: Alertnet.
Link: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/rights-groups-call-for-protection-of-rohingyas-in-india-and-indonesia.