Rohingya drown, govts fail to act

Bangkok Post

PUBLISHED : 16 JAN 2023

On Jan 8, a boat with 185 Rohingya refugees washed ashore on the coast of Indonesia's Aceh province. They had spent weeks at sea in desperate conditions, fleeing cramped and overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh in search of a better life. More than half were women and children.

Sadly, they are far from alone. Just since November last year, at least another three boats have landed in Aceh after similarly perilous journeys, carrying hundreds of refugees, with at least 20 people dying at sea. According to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, thousands of Rohingya women, men and children took to boats just in 2022.

Insight: What we know about the Rohingya refugee crisis at sea

mizzima
AFP
02 January 2023

Rohingya refugees wait for an identification process by the local police at their temporary shelter provided by Aceh local Government in Pidie, Aceh, Indonesia, 28 December 2022. Photo: EPA

At least 2,000 Rohingya refugees are believed to have fled camps in Bangladesh on overcrowded boats in recent months seeking sanctuary elsewhere in Southeast Asia, with hundreds feared to have died at sea.

The Muslim Rohingya originally fled persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar in 2017, with around a million now estimated to be living in refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh.

154 Rohingya drifting in Andaman Sea rescued, handed to Myanmar authorities

AA

SM Najmus Saki
DHAKA, Bangladesh
10.12.2022

Rohingya rights group worries about fate of rescued Rohingya in hands of Myanmar junta

A group of Rohingya, who had been drifting in a boat on the Andaman Sea along the Thailand coast, were rescued by a Vietnamese oil service vessel and handed to the Myanmar military government.

The boat was floating in Thai territory.

The Thai Navy went to examine the boat but did not help its occupants with food for people who had been starving for days.

Relatives of the victims received a message that they were rescued by the Vietnamese, according to a Rohingya rights group.

Challenging Malaysia’s Moral Authority on Myanmar

THE I DIPLOMAT
Luke Hunt
October 26, 2022

Deportations of Myanmar asylum seekers and the failure to act on Rohingya death camps are disheartening.

Malaysia has long sought to bolster its diplomatic stocks by exerting its religious credentials through the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and, closer to home, within ASEAN, where it has forged a troika with fellow Muslim countries Indonesia and Brunei.

The troika is an admirable club that emerged after the military in Myanmar, or Tatmadaw, inflicted an ethnic cleansing and alleged genocide against that country’s Muslim Rohingya community in 2017, resulting in more than 1.4 million of them now living in squalid camps in neighboring Bangladesh.

Rohingya man narrates 16 days’ ordeal on route of trafficking

The Daily Star

Mohammad Jamil Khan
Thu Oct 13, 2022 

A transnational syndicate is using a new land route through Myanmar to traffic people, mostly Rohingyas from refugee camps in Bangladesh, to Thailand and Malaysia.

Previously, Rohingyas used to be trafficked to those countries by sea, but traffickers started using the new route as law enforcers increased vigilance in Cox's Bazar and in the Bay of Bengal.

The human trafficking syndicate comprises of Bangladeshis, Rohingyas, people of the Burmese Mog tribe, and Thai and Malaysian nationals and it has been using this land route for around eight months, said sources in law enforcement agencies, Rohingya leaders, and a trafficked youth.

Luring Rohingyas with promises of a better life in Malaysia or Thailand, members of the syndicate first take them from camps in Cox's Bazar, to a village in near Myanmar border, and then send them to the destinations via Rakhine State, they said.

All countries should take in more Rohingya refugees: PM

theSundaily
24-09- 2022

NEW YORK, Sept 23 -- Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob giving his speech at the general debate of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters Friday. - BERNAMAPIX

NEW YORK: It is the responsibility of all countries to take in more Rohingya refugees to be resettled in their respective countries following the crisis in Myanmar, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

He said although Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol, the country, on humanitarian grounds, has accepted nearly 200,000 Rohingya refugees.

Bukit Aman: Police deploy helicopter to track down remaining Rohingya detainees

malay mail
Thursday, 21 Apr 2022 07:32 PM MYT

Bukit Aman Internal Security and Public Order Department director Datuk Seri Hazani Ghazali said the Royal Malaysia Police aircraft was today sent to the search area which has been expanded from time to time depending on police intelligence. — Picture by Firdaus Latif

KUALA LUMPUR, April 21 — The police have deployed an Air Operations Force (PGU) helicopter to track down the remaining Rohingya detainees who are still at large after escaping from the Sungai Bakap Immigration Detention Depot yesterday.

Six killed as hundreds of Rohingya flee Malaysia detention

Aljazeera

20 Apr 2022

More than 500 escaped an immigration detention centre in the country’s north early on Wednesday, but some were killed as they tried to cross a highway.

Rohingya refugees, who escaped from a Malaysian Immigration detention centre on Wednesday, squat on the verge after being rearrested by police [Royal Malaysia Police via AFP]

Malaysia set up roadblocks and deployed the police, immigration and volunteer security services after more than 500 mostly Muslim Rohingya refugees fled a temporary immigration detention centre in the country’s north.

The Rise of Muslim Millenarianism in Malaysia

THE I DIPLOMAT

Muhammad Haziq Bin Jani

March 02, 2022

Eschatological or “end-times” narratives have become increasingly popular among Malaysian Muslims.

Economic uncertainty and a fractured political landscape may be triggering a new wave of Islamic resurgence in Muslim-majority Malaysia. In the 1970s and 1980s, various strains of Islamist discourse penetrated civil society and the already identity-based political scene. During that period, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) declared the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) kafir, while the latter co-opted the Islamist youth activist Anwar Ibrahim into its ranks and expanded the country’s religious bureaucracy.

Indonesia rejects Rohingya refugees, sends boat to Malaysia

Aljazeera
28 Dec 2021

At least 100 people, mostly women and children, on board a wooden vessel said to be taking on water denied refuge.

A boat carries Rohingya people stranded at sea off Indonesia [Aditya Setiawan via Reuters]

Dozens of Rohingya refugees who were intercepted after their boat ran into trouble off the coast of Indonesia’s Aceh province were being sent into Malaysian waters, authorities said.

At least 100 people, mostly women and children, on board a wooden vessel said to be taking on water were denied refuge in Indonesia and instead pushed into the neighbouring Southeast Asian country.

‘Waiting for us to die’: Indonesia’s Rohingya refugees left in legal limbo for years

South China Morning Post

Eko Rusdianto  and Aisyah Llewellyn
Medan,Makassar
19 Jun, 2021

• Makassar, in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province, is home to thousands of refugees and asylum seekers – but legally, all are just ‘transiting’
• Dwindling resettlement quotas in third countries mean some have been waiting to leave for a decade or more, as they battle with illness and depression

Reyas Alam visit the grave of Haji Mohd Shiraj, a Rohingya refugee who died in Makassar while waiting to be resettled. Photo: Eko Rusdianto

The number of people fleeing wars, violence, persecution and human rights violations rose for the ninth year in 2020 despite the pandemic, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency. About 20.7 million people are considered refugees under the UNHCR’s mandate. On World Refugee Day, This Week in Asia looks at the plight of Rohingya communities seeking temporary refuge in Indonesia and India.

With the National Covid-19 vaccination programme in full swing, Rohingyas living in Malaysia being left behind

malay mail
Wednesday, 16 Jun 2021 
BY KENNETH TEE

A general view of the Rohingya settlement here near Bandar Baru Sentul June 13, 2021. ― Picture by Hari Anggara

KUALA LUMPUR, June 16 — As the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) picks up speed around the country, one group of people are not even sure when they will get vaccinated.

The Rohingyas — a minority group of Myanmar Muslims once described by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as “one of, if not the, most discriminated people in the world” — are refugees who have been in Malaysia since the 1970s but the biggest influx came in 2017 after the military crackdown in Myanmar.

Why we should be kinder to Rohingya refugees — Liew Chin Tong

malay mail
Monday, 14 Jun 2021

JUNE 14 — I read with distress and alarm the heightened publicity attacks against the Rohingya and other migrants by Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin and Immigration Director-General Datuk Khairul Dzaimee Daud.

Distress because the Rohingya as a group have been subjected to persecution and suffered genocide at the hands of the Myanmar military, and alarm because of the vitriol against a defenceless people.

In August 2017, more than 742,000 Rohingya fled Bangladesh seeking refuge from the Myanmarese regime’s pogrom. Many perished along the way. The refugees who made it to Bangladesh have been sheltered mainly in the camps in Cox’s Bazar and Teknaf. With this massive influx of refugees adding to an older generation of Rohingya who had fled Myanmar into Bangladesh decades earlier, the numbers soon mushroomed to more than a million Rohingya refugees, squeezed into a crowded and underdeveloped border region of Bangladesh.

Malaysia’s Anti-Rohingya Refugee Poster Angers Rights Groups

Benar News

Hadi Azmi and Nisha David
Kuala Lumpur
2021-06-11

Rohingya who illegally entered Thailand and were bound for Malaysia, sit in a house in Bangkok, Jan. 3, 2021.

[Handout from Thailand's Immigration Bureau via AFP]

Rights groups in Malaysia are incensed by an illustration posted on social media by government agencies that shows armed security officials and navy ships surrounding a boat, with a caption that says, “Rohingya migrants, your arrival is not welcome.”

Posts of the illustration prepared by the National Task Force were taken down from the Immigration Department’s Twitter feed and the border agency’s Facebook page, after rights watchdog Amnesty International issued a harsh statement against the illustration.

Are formal interactions with China helping legitimise Myanmar’s junta in the eyes of the world?

SCMP

Pei-Hua Yu
10 Jun, 2021

• A recent Chinese embassy statement referring to coup architect Min Aung Hlaing as the ‘leader of Myanmar’ is among the exchanges decried by the shadow National Unity Government
• But analysts say while there are concerns over Beijing’s actions, they should not be over-interpreted – and Asean’s next moves could play a significant role in how the regime is perceived

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi (right) bumps elbows with junta representative Wunna Maung Lwin at a June 8 meeting marking the 30th anniversary of formal relations between China and Asean. Photo: Xinhua

Recent formal interactions between Myanmar’s junta and officials from China have raised questions about whether the generals who staged February’s coup are garnering international recognition as the Southeast Asian nation’s legitimate executive authority.

24 Rohingyas rescued while being trafficked to Malaysia

The Daily Star

Star Digital Report 

May 11, 2021

Police rescued 24 Rohingyas -- 14 female, five male, and five children -- from Teknaf upazila of Cox's Bazar while being trafficked to Malaysia.

The law enforcers also arrested four alleged human traffickers -- Md Ali Chand, Nurul Amin, Rashida Begum, and Razia Begum -- during two separate drives in Borodail Jahajpura and Jaliaghata villages yesterday (Monday), Md Hafizur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Model Police Station, told The Daily Star.

Wife of Rohingya refugee seeks help from Suhakam

FMT

Samuel Chua
May 10, 2021

Maslina Abu Hassan and her son Muhammad Ridwan at the Suhakam office.

KUALA LUMPUR: Fearful of threats and intimidation, Rohingya refugee Zafar Ahmad Abdul Ghani has not stepped out of his house for twelve months.

His family received threatening text messages, his wife’s car tyres were slashed recently, and they live in constant worry every day – and the wife is now seeking a meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to help protect her family.

It began in April last year when hateful remarks and threats against Rohingya refugees flooded Facebook and Twitter, in the wake of fake news that an activist from the community demanded that they be granted citizenship.

Thirty Rohingyas rescued off Teknaf coast in Cox's Bazar

prothomalo

Staff Correspondent
Correspondent
Cox's Bazar, Teknaf

Coastguards rescued 30 Rohingya people from drifting boat on 27 April, 2021.Collected

Bangladesh Coast Guard on Tuesday rescued 30 Rohingyas from a boat drifting in the Bay of Bengal near Teknaf of Cox's Bazar while making a trip from Bangladesh to Malaysia.

According to the coast guard, the rescued Rohingyas are residents of refugee camps in Ukhiya and Teknaf of Cox’s Bazar.

Among the Rohingya people, five were children, five men and 20 women.

Till 1:00pm, the rescued people were kept under the coast guard custody at Baharchhar in Teknaf upazia. They were being handed over to the police at the time.

Bangladesh rescues 30 Rohingya adrift for days after pirate attack

FMT

AFP
April 27, 2021

The refugees would be sent to an island facility named Bhashan Char. (AP pic)

COX’S BAZAR: The Bangladesh coastguard on Tuesday rescued 30 Rohingya refugees adrift in the Bay of Bengal for two days after they were attacked by pirates, an official said.

About a million Rohingya refugees live in sprawling camps in southeast Bangladesh, having fled repression in Myanmar.

Many pay often-unscrupulous traffickers to put them on dangerous sea journeys to Southeast Asian countries – in this case Malaysia, home to a sizable Rohingya diaspora.

30 Rohingyas heading to Malaysia rescued

The Daily Star
Our Correspondent, Cox’s Bazar
April 28, 2021

 

Photo Star

Bangladesh Coast Guard members yesterday rescued 30 Rohingyas, who were trying to go to Malaysia illegally by a trawler through the Bay of Bengal, in Cox's Bazar's Teknaf.

The Rohingyas include 10 women and five children. They were residents of 

The coastguards also seized the trawler.

Quoting the refugees, Amirul Haque, an official of Coast Guard's media wing, told reporters that around 50 Rohingyas boarded the trawler from the beaches in Teknaf and Ukhia upazilas on April 22.

The trawler illegally started for Malaysia on Monday night and at one stage, the trawler driver shouted that robbers had been chasing them and anchored it on Boro Dail beach yesterday morning.