BANGKOK: Fifty-nine Rohingya folks have been found on a Thai island, saying they had been abandoned by traffickers en path to Malaysia, a senior police officer stated Sunday (June 5).
The group – amongst them 5 youngsters – had been found on Koh Dong island within the southern Satun province on Saturday (June 4), stated lieutenant common Surachet Hakpan.
Each 12 months, hundreds of the Rohingya folks, closely persecuted in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, threat their lives in months-long costly journeys to achieve Malaysia over Thailand’s seas.
Police stated that they had been charged with unlawful entry and will face deportation to Myanmar following a courtroom case.
“We are offering humanitarian help and can examine whether or not they’re victims of human trafficking or in the event that they entered illegally,” Surachet stated.
The group appeared “starving and was more likely to have had no meals for 3 to 5 days”, a police assertion stated.
Group members informed officers their boat was amongst three vessels carrying 178 those who had left Myanmar and Bangladesh, having paid an agent round RM5,000 ($1,300) for the journey.
The first two boats carrying 119 folks had been stopped and arrested by Malaysian authorities, in line with the Thai police assertion.
The boat’s crew then determined to desert these onboard on Koh Dong island – telling them that that they had reached Malaysia, the group informed officers.
The incident comes after the our bodies of 14 Rohingya folks, together with youngsters, had been found washed up on a seaside final month after they tried to flee Myanmar.
Hundreds of hundreds of Rohingya folks fled a navy crackdown within the nation in 2017, bringing with them harrowing tales of homicide, rape and arson.
Those nonetheless in Myanmar are broadly seen as interlopers from Bangladesh and are largely denied citizenship, many rights and entry to healthcare and training.
Malaysia is a key vacation spot for Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar or refugee camps in Bangladesh.
In 2019, a Thai boat captain was charged with smuggling 65 Rohingya folks from Myanmar after their vessel was shipwrecked on an island off the coast of Satun province.
The similar space was the hub of a multimillion greenback trafficking route, which unravelled in 2015 after the invention of mass graves of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants alongside the border with Malaysia. – AFP
