Thailand arrests more than 150 Rohingya

BANGKOK (AFP) – Thailand arrested and pledged to deport more than 150 Myanmar Rohingya migrants discovered in a hidden camp near the country’s southern border with Malaysia, police said Monday.

The 71 men and 85 women and children were found on a rubber plantation in Songkhla Province, local police colonel Krisakorn Pleetanyawong said, four days after some 400 Rohingya were discovered in another raid in the province.

“They will be treated under the law as illegal immigrants and will be deported,” he told AFP, adding that a Thai man had also been arrested on suspicion of violating immigration law.

UNHCR expresses concern over Rohingya exodus

Monday, January 14, 2013

 

Last year, thousands of people risked boat journeys on the Bay of Bengal, including people fleeing violence in Myanmar, like these people. The photo is taken from UNHCR website.Star Online Report

The UN refugee agency has expressed concern as Rohingyas are fleeing both Myanmar and Bangladesh in large numbers risking their lives on smugglers' boats in the Bay of Bengal following the recent violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

Mounting frustration over lack of imminent solutions to the plight of Rohingyas is another reason for the exodus towards Southeast Asian countries, said a report of the UNHCR published on its website on January 11.

Over 600 illegal Rohingya migrants held in Thai raids

By Amy Sawitta Lefevre

 

BANGKOK (Reuters) - At least 600 Rohingya Muslims believed to be illegal migrants from Myanmar have been detained in Thailand after two raids by the authorities near the border with Malaysia, police said on Friday.

More than 300 Rohingya were discovered on Tuesday in a building in the town of Sadao, while a second raid on Thursday at a rubber plantation near the border town of Pedang Besar uncovered 393 more, including 14 children and 8 women.

In this photo taken Jan. 1, 2013, a boat carrying 73 Rohingya refugees is intercepted by Thai authorities off the sea in Phuket, southern Thailand. (AP Photo)YANGON: About 13,000 boat people, including many stateless Rohingya Muslims, fled Myanmar and neighbouring Bangladesh in 2012 with hundreds dying during the perilous sea voyage, the UN said Friday.

A wave of deadly sectarian violence in Myanmar's western state of Rakhine has triggered an exodus of refugees, mostly heading for Malaysia.

"We know of at least 485 people who've drowned or are lost at sea," said Vivian Tan, spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency, adding the real death toll was probably far higher.

"These numbers are very worrying," Tan said.

Malaysia faces Rohingya influx

This group of men in Kuala Lumpur say they were forced to flee Myanmar because of persecution. Some of them have arrived as recently as this week, risking their lives to come by sea.

But they managed to avoid getting detained unlike those on the boat that arrived on Malaysia’s shores this week.

One Rohingya drowned trying to swim ashore and the others detained by Malaysian authorities.

Anecdotal evidence suggests a marked increase in the number of Rohingyas fleeing to Malaysia since the anti-Muslim violence broke out in Myanmar, last June.

Floating Rohingyas in Thai Sea

Recently, 70 Rohingyas including vulnerable women, children and elderly people are floating in Thai sea who left their ancestral homeland of Arakan State, Burma to escape burning genocide. Voices of America covered the story as follow:


http://burmese.voanews.com/content/thia-authority-will-send-rohingya-back-to-original-land/1576434.html

၂၀၁၃၊ ဇန္နဝါရီလ ၁ ရက္ေန႔က ထိုင္းအစိုးရက ဖမ္းဆီးထားေသာ ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာ ေလွစီးေျပး ဒုကၡသည္မ်ား။ 

A Presentation at the Milwaukee Turkish Muslim Center on 12/29/2012

BURMESE ROHINGYA AMERICAN FRIENDSHIP ASSOCIATION (BRAFA)

4818 South 14th Street, Milwaukee Wisconsin 53221, USA

Tel: (414) 736 4273, (414) 306 1751, Fax: (414) 817 0656

E-mail: contactinfo.brafa@yahoo.com, http://www.brafausa.blogspot.com/

A Presentation at the Milwaukee Turkish Muslim Center on 12/29/2012

Dear respected brothers, Assalamualaikum Wr. Wbr.

I would like to thank all brothers who are attended at this gathering today for inviting me to give a paper presentation on the current situation of Arakan Muslim population in Burma.