AP | 10 APR 2019
People believed to be Muslims from Rakhine State sit on a beach near Sungai Belati, Perlis, Malaysia. Photo - AP
Malaysian police said Monday that 41 suspected Rakhine Muslim men and boys have been detained in the northernmost state of Perlis, the second group to land in the country in just over a month, and that some 200 others are still believed to be at sea.
Perlis police chief Noor Mushar Mohamad said the group, ranging in age from 14 to 30, landed early Monday on the same beach where 34 women and children from northern Rakhine were found stranded on March 2.
Noor Mushar said one of the men told police that they were part of over 200 Muslims from northern Rakhine in a large boat that sailed overnight from Thailand, and that 47 of them were transferred to a smaller boat to Perlis after they paid 4000 ringgit (K1.47 million/US$977) each to a trafficker. He said the group walked in mud to reach the beach and subsequently fanned out in smaller groups into the villages when their local agent failed to turn up.
Based on the information, he said some 200 Muslims from northern Rakhine are believed to still be at sea in Thai waters while six others who landed in Malaysia are missing.
More than 700,000 Muslims from northern Rakhine have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh since August 2017, when a group of militants attacked Myanmar security forces, triggering a massive retaliation by the Tatmadaw (military).
Myanmar rights groups have said that traffickers are tricking many northern Rakhine Muslims into leaving Bangladesh by telling them that they face death if they are repatriated to Myanmar.
Noor Mushar said the 41 men have been handed over to the immigration department for having no travel documents. He said he would tell his Thai counterparts about the boat believed still at sea at a border cooperation meeting on Thursday.
Malaysian authorities are on the lookout for more boats carrying northern Rakhine Muslims entering the country’s waters, Noor Mushar said.
Most people in Buddhist-majority Myanmar don’t accept northern Rakhine Muslims as a native ethnic group. They are instead viewed as having migrated illegally from Bangladesh, though generations of them have lived in Myanmar. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982 as well as access to education and hospitals.
The UN General Assembly approved a resolution in December condemning the alleged “gross human rights violations and abuses” against Muslims in northern Rakhine.
Myanmar’s government denies claims of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and rejects the UN investigators’ work and the General Assembly resolution as biased.
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