Rohingya
refugee Sakir Husan, center in yellow prayer cap, sits surrounded by
well-wishers at a house in the capital of southern Thailand’s Pattani
Province. (Photo: Joe Jackson / The Irrawaddy)
PATTANI, Thailand
— The three conflict-ridden provinces of Thailand’s Deep South are not a
popular destination for many visitors. A renewed and intensifying
insurgency, which has killed more than 5,300 people since 2004, provides
a daily diet of military check-points, assassinations and bombings.
But
for Sakir Husan, 18, and other ethnic Rohingya fleeing sectarian
violence in Burma’s Arakan State, the region is proving a welcome escape
from the nightmares of their lives back home. Husan is part of a
22-strong group—18 men and four women—currently being housed in the
capital of Pattani Province since Jan. 16.
They are among hundreds
of Rohingya who have landed on the shores of southern Thailand this
month and then been dispersed across the country by the authorities. But
in contrast to the frosty reception Rohingya have often received from
the Thai state, which has been criticized by human rights groups for
previously returning them to sea or overland to Burma, the group in
Pattani has received the warmest of welcomes from the
local—predominantly Malay-Muslim—population.
“I am happy to be
here—and that everybody has been so kind,” a visibly drained Husan tells
The Irrawaddy through a translator, surrounded by local well-wishers.
The 18-year-old, wearing a small prayer cap and longyi, says he felt he
had little choice but to leave his home—and parents—behind in the Arakan
State capital Sittwe.
“Before we left our homeland, we felt like
we would be killed. So we decided to take our chances at sea, and maybe
we can survive,” he explains. Husan says the group spent 20 days at sea
in a boat packed with 143 people, surviving by drinking rain and
seawater and never giving up hope.
“Some people were in the depths of the boat, others had no energy, but we eventually made it,” he adds.
He
was separated from his brother on arrival in Thailand, and has not
heard from him since. Although he has a cousin in the group in Pattani,
the trauma of being apart from his family is taking its toll: “Even
though I’m here, my heart misses my parents—they are still in Burma,
they could not leave.”
In an apparent show of Muslim solidarity,
scores of locals have been flocking daily to the government building in
Pattani where they are being housed to meet the Rohingyas and donate
everyday essentials. Among the items piling up at the center are sacks
of rice, noodles, biscuits, canned food, water, eggs, toiletries and
mats to sleep on.
“I want to donate—we are all brothers so we have
to help,” says Medina Adulyarat, 22, a Pattani local who came to donate
items, comfort the refugees and talk to them through translators.
Although
both the Rohingya in Burma and elements of the Malay-Muslim population
in Thailand’s Deep South are involved in varying degrees of conflict
with their respective neighboring Buddhist communities, locals in
Pattani deny this is the basis for their sympathy and support.
“The
situations are very different,” says Shakira Haji Marwan, a local
education worker donating detergent, soap and toothbrushes. “The Burmese
government doesn’t even recognize them as citizens, while here
Malay-Muslims are at least recognized as part of the Thai nation state.”
For
Marwan, the compassion being shown is simply human. “We pity them
because from what we know they were treated badly in Burma—not as human
beings but as animals. So as a Muslim, when I know Rohingyas are here, I
try to help [with] what I can. Most Muslim people here, when they heard
what had been happening to them in Burma, they prayed to God for their
protection.”
The group in Pattani are being temporarily housed in
an office of the Thai government’s Ministry of Social Development and
Human Security. The space is so small some of the men are sleeping
outdoors under tarpaulins. It is unclear how long they will be there.
The
government is still deciding how to deal with the latest arrivals of
Rohingya—numbering as many as 4,000 in the last three months. State
agencies were meeting on Jan. 25 ahead of forthcoming discussions with
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the
International Organization for Migration and the United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF). NGOs have been pushing for unfettered access
to the Rohingya, with some success. Staff from the UNHCR and the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have been visiting them
across the country, including in the Deep South, to check on living
conditions, help establish contact with their relatives back in Arakan
State and provide basic basic necessities.
Phil Robertson, deputy
Asia director for Human Rights Watch, wants the government to formulate a
consistent and more humane policy towards the Rohingya. He tells The
Irrawaddy that Thai people across the country have shown remarkable and
admirable support for the migrants—and that the authorities should
follow their example.
“In the past the Rohingya have been
classified as a security threat. Recent weeks shows nothing could be
further from the truth—these people come with nothing. So the Thai
government should do the right thing,” he says.
The Thai Supreme
Commander, Gen Tanasak Patimaprogorn, has called on the international
community to provide more assistance for the refugees. But Robertson
says stemming the flood of Rohingya to the shores of southern Thailand
requires like-minded Southeast Asian nations to put more pressure on the
Burmese government to grant them full citizenship and end their
stateless plight. “It just has to stop: that’s what the message needs to
be,” he says.
Meanwhile, the recent mass arrivals of Rohingya in
Thailand have focused the spotlight on the smuggling of refugees from
Burma and the possible role of the Thai Army in the process. The
country’s Anti-Human Trafficking Center, part of the Department of
Special Investigations, said this week an investigation into the wave of
Rohingya migrants arriving in southern Thailand found they were not
victims of organized mass human trafficking. But The Bangkok Post
reports that police are probing two military officers attached to the
powerful Internal Security Operations Command who are suspected of
involvement in the smuggling of Rohingya. The pair, holding the rank of
sublieutenant and major, are being investigated by an Army panel,
according to the newspaper.
Rohingya migrant Sakir Husan says he
paid nobody to board the boat fleeing Arakan and was not aware of Army
involvement in his journey. He told The Irrawaddy he has only one
request of the Thai authorities: “I just don’t want to go back to
Burma.”
Source: Irrawaddy
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