Malaysia battles swell of refugees

MALAYSIA had detained more than a thousand Bangladeshi and Rohingya refugees, including dozens of children, police said, a day after authorities rescued hundreds stranded off the coast of Indonesia’s western tip.

There has been a huge increase in refugees from impoverished Bangladesh and Myanmar drifting on boats to Malaysia and Indonesia in recent days after Thailand, usually the initial destination in the region’s people smuggling network, announced a crackdown on the trafficking.

More than 100 refugees from these countries were found wandering around in southern Thailand last week, apparently after they were abandoned by the smugglers.

An estimated 25 000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and Bangladeshis boarded smugglers’ boats in the first three months of this year – twice as many in the same period last year, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has said.

Police on the north-west Malaysian island of Langkawi, close to the border with Thailand, said three boats arrived in the middle of the night to unload the refugees, who were taken into custody as they came ashore. One boat was found after it got stuck on a breakwater, but the other two vessels escaped. There was no immediate word on the crew.

“They came from their respective countries, moved towards Thailand and into Malaysia by Langkawi,” said police chief Harrith Kam Abdullah.

The 555 Bangladeshis and 463 Rohingya would be handed over to the immigration department, he said.

Stranded

Malaysia, one of SouthEast Asia’s wealthier economies, has been a magnet for illegal immigrants from poorer countries in the region.

Nearly 600 migrants thought to be Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshis were rescued from at least two wooden boats stranded off the coast of Indonesia’s Aceh province on Sunday, the authorities said.

The boats which were carrying nearly 100 women, and dozens of children were towed to shore by fishermen after running out of fuel.

Thai spokesman LieutenantGeneral Prawut Thawornsiri said the crackdown in people smuggling had prompted the rush of arrivals elsewhere.

“Yes, our crackdown is affecting the boats,” he said in Bangkok.

“They are going to Indonesia. Why else would they go to Indonesia? It is so far. Our job is to block the boats and not let them land on our shores.”

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha ordered a clean-up of suspected human trafficking camps around the country after 33 bodies, believed to be of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh, were found in shallow graves in the south of the country, near Malaysia.

First Admiral Maritime Zulkifli bin Abu Bakar, the head of criminal investigations in the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, said the arrivals in Malaysia were a surprise and couldn’t say if the arrivals were linked to the Thai crackdown.

Of those rescued off Indonesia, about 50 were taken to hospital suffering from starvation, said North Aceh police chief Achmadi. Some of the migrants had believed they had arrived in Malaysia.

The refugees were being held in a gymnasium in the town of Lhoksukon, about 20km from where they were brought ashore. – Reuters