Source Women
News Network:
(WNN/IRIN) Khao
Lak,
THAILAND: The future of more than 1,500 recent Rohingya boat arrivals
in Thailand is unclear, despite a government reprieve allowing them
to stay for another six months. The mainly Muslim Rohingya have long
faced persecution in Myanmar, where they are de jure stateless under
Burmese law; in Bangladesh most Rohingya refugees are unwelcome and
face discrimination.
“Their
long-term fate remains uncertain,” Chris Lewa, director of the
Arakan Project, an advocacy group for the Rohingya, told WNN news
partner IRIN. “In the short-term, they should not be held in
overcrowded IDCs [immigration detention centres] and police cells.
Alternatives to detention have to be found such as open facilities
under regulated conditions where they could at least move around.”
On 25 January,
Thai Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul announced that 1,500
Rohingya men, women and children would be allowed to stay in the
country for another six months, during which time the authorities
would work to find a more viable solution, including the possibility
of third country resettlement.
According to the
authorities, 1,486 Rohingyas arrived in January and are now in
detention, including 264 women and children.
More Rohingyas
(108) were rescued from a sinking boat at the Mu Ko Surin Marine
National Park in Phangnaga Province on 28 January, and another 205
were intercepted south of the resort island of Phuket on 29 January,
say activists.
Emergency
medical staff have been on stand-by aiding the new arrivals in Khao
Lak, Phangnaga Province, southern Thailand.
“Many
of the survivors are suffering from severe malnutrition after
drinking salty sea water which causes anaemia, scabies and stomach
parasites,” said Wanida Nacharung of the Phangnaga shelter in Takua
Pa District, where 82 children and 24 women are now staying.
In recent years,
boatloads of mostly male Rohingyas from Bangladesh and Myanmar have
migrated by boat down the Andaman coast in the hope of reaching
predominately Muslim Malaysia and finding work.
But this year
there has been an increasing number of women and children
accompanying the men.
According to the
UN, some 115,000 people are displaced in Myanmar’s Rakhine State
following inter-communal violence in June and October 2012, in which
thousands of homes and buildings were burned or destroyed and dozens
of people killed. About 85 percent of the displaced are in and around
Sittwe.
Critics say that
sending the Rohingya back to Myanmar – as has been Thai policy in
the past – would be a mistake, and they call on the authorities to
improve conditions inside the detention centres.
“We
would like to discuss about non-refoulement and the long-term
treatment of the Rohingya in Thailand’s detention centres because
in the past, we detained them for so long in confined quarters some
of them died. We must learn from the past,” said Kessarin
Tiawsakul, an investigating officer fromNational
Human Rights Commission of Thailand.
Tiawsakul
realizes that some of the arrivals may actually be Bangladeshi labour
migrants. He said a proper identification process needs be
implemented to provide a more accurate profile of each case.
More
to come?
Large numbers of
boats have already sailed and are expected to continue to sail from
the Bangladesh and Myanmar border area, Sittwe and other locations in
Rakhine State, according to Lewa.
Recently arrived
Areecha, 40, from Sittwe, said she had no option but to board a boat
after the Burmese military shot her two sons and their house was
torched in June.
“There
was no water on the boat and we were desperate. Some people passed
out. Others vomited. I want to die here. I don’t want to go back,”
she said.
More than 900
Rohingya men are now being detained in 10 police stations and two
IDCs in Songkhla Province, southern Thailand.
“The
immediate priority is to make sure their humanitarian needs are
addressed. The local authorities and community in Songkhla have been
very generous with their assistance, but there need to be more
sustainable ways to accommodate these groups,” said Vivian Tan, a
spokeswoman for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
“There
are likely to be different profiles within these groups, including
people who may need international protection, vulnerable individuals
like unaccompanied children, and possibly people seeking economic
opportunities elsewhere. Different groups will need different
solutions,” she said.
“The
Rohingya should have a right to apply for asylum and have the right
to go through a full refugee status determination process overseen by
the UNHCR with the Thai authorities,” said Phil Robertson, deputy
director for Human Rights Watch in Asia. “If they are found to be
refugees they should be provided with all entailed in terms of
protection, not just temporarily but over the long term if needed.”
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