Continuing exodus of refugees from Burma

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) accused the states of south-east Asia on Monday of refusing protection to political refugees from Burma in spite of severe persecution. Particularly affected are the members of the Moslem minority of the Rohingya, who flee week by week to neighbouring countries in hundreds. "In contravention of the convention on refugees of the United Nations Banglasdesh and Thailand deport by force Rohingya refugees back to Burma, where they are threatened by further persecution”, criticised the GfbV Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius, in Göttingen. The international community can no longer sit by and watch this inhuman practice. Burma does not recognize the 720,000 Rohingya as its citizens, refuses them passports, birth certificates and marriage and limits their freedom of movement. Members of this minority are constantly victims of politically motivated murder, forced labour and religious persecution.

The setting-up of a garrison in the Burmese federal province of Arakhan caused a new flood of refugees among the Rohingya, reported Delius. In the first week of June alone 83 of them were arrested crossing the border river Naf by soldiers from Bangladesh and deported. In the last week of May 245 Rohingya suffered a similar fate. In the middle of May almost 300 members of the minority were arrested at the frontier and sent back by force. Bangladesh is also planning the deportation of the 25,000 Rohingya refugees officially registered in two camps in the Cox’s Bazaar region.

In one camp in the Indonesian province of Aceh 277 Rohingya are waiting in desperate conditions for a state to say that it is prepared to take them in. A further 114 Rohingya are to be deported in the next few days from Indonesia to Bangladesh because they are held to be Bangladeshis.

In January 2009 the fate of 1,190 Rohingya boat-people hit the headlines throughout the world. Hundreds of refugees met their deaths when the Thai military police towed the boats back out to open sea because the kingdom did not wish to grant them asylum. The security forces responsible were in an internal investigation of the Thai military in May 2009 found not guilty of attacking the boat-people.

Ulrich Delius can also be reached at u.delius@gfbv.de