Skip to main content

Sea Baby Among Rohingya Now Fleeing Indefinite Detention in Thailand

On the run: Baby born at sea Muhamad Hamid at a shelter in February Photo by phuketwan.com/file

By Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison 
September 17, 2013

PHUKET: A boy born on a boat off the coast of Thailand was among the Rohingya who fled a family refuge centre north of Phuket early today.

The group of eight women and children were in the province of Surat Thani tonight, having given themselves over to human traffickers rather than endure any longer a frustrating nine-month wait in Thailand. 

The Phang Nga shelter north of Phuket, which once held more than 70 women and children, is now inhabited by a dwindling 29 Rohingya.

A 12-year-old boy, who fled Burma alone in December with no relatives awaiting him in Malaysia, cried while on the telephone to friends, telling them about his escape early today. 

Unless he is able to find the 40,000 baht the traffickers will ask for his safe passage to Malaysia, he is likely to be sold onto a trawler or to a fish factory.

The previous night, another 10 Rohingya escaped from a different Thai family shelter in Prachuap Khiri Khan province. 

Phuketwan has been told by usually reliable sources that human trafficking continues in Thailand in the same unrestricted way that it has flourished since the first Rohingya fled persecution in Burma many years ago. 

Although there are about 1800 Rohingya still being held in government Immigration centres, police stations and family shelters, the sources say nearly twice that number are in traffickers' camps on the mainland or on islands along the Andaman Sea coast. 

The scores of Rohingya who emerged from the jungle in the southern province of Songkhla on Thursday were part of a group waiting to be traded across the border to Malaysia, Phuketwan has been told.

In coming months, as the safe ''sailing season'' gets underway in earnest, more Rohingya are expected to flee Burma in unprecedented numbers, with many of them likely to pass through Thailand on their path to Malaysia. 

Although several traffickers' camps were raided in January with Rohingya men, women and children taken into custody in Thailand, other camps and other victims have since taken their place. 

It's perilous to sail in the monsoon season, yet many Rohingya have done so this year. Even more are expected to take to the sea between October and April, when it's safer. 

Whatever point Thailand hoped to prove by ''rescuing'' from camps and boats hundreds of Rohingya who would have been in Malaysia within days has been lost. Nine months on, no practical Rohingya policy has been forthcoming. 

The mass exodus from Burma is about to resume. And the level of desperation remains so high that more babies may be born at sea. 

Now nine months old, Muhamad Hamid came into the world on a boat on December 24. Because his people are stateless and unwanted, there is no official record of his birth.

His mother, NuRu, 34, went into labor on the eleventh day of her voyage, so keen to flee ethnic cleansing in Burma that the possibility of giving birth at sea did not stop her.

Now on the run, she knows that Thailand offers no more hope than Burma. All she can do is hope that perhaps Malaysia will be different, if she can get there.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rohingya MP U Shwe Maung undergoes questioning

Rohingya MP U Shwe Maung By Kayleigh Long Myanmar Times February 07, 2014 Union Solidarity and Development Party MP U Shwe Maung has been questioned by police in Nay Pyi Taw over comments he made to Democratic Voice of Burma about possible police involvement in a fire that broke out in a Muslim village in Rakhine State late last month. More than a dozen homes were destroyed in the blaze at Du Chee Yar Tan West village near Maungdaw in northern Rakhine State on January 28. U Shwe Maung said the February 4 interrogation came at the behest of President U Thein Sein, who sent a letter to Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Speaker Thura U Shwe Mann requesting permission for police question the MP. The interview lasted about 90 minutes and was conducted at his USDP living quarters in Nay Pyi Taw. It focused on allegations that U Shwe Maung, a Rohingya, had defamed the state and police by saying that residents believed security forces were involved in starting the fire. ...

ERC representatives and Dr.Maung Zarni partook a seminar in Sweden

ERC Delegation Meet Dr. Zarni Mohamed Farooq ( Mayu Press) May 7, 2013 The Stockholm University of Sweden held a seminar on “Forum for Asian Studies” at William Olsson Hall, the department of geological science on 3rd May 2013. It depicts Rohingya tragedy and Human Right Eradication in western Burma. Burma (Myanmar) is a nation with ambition to make their name and discharge their White Man’s Burden, one of the world’s hottest assignments in the world of diplomats, development consultants, NGO experts and academic researchers, a lucrative ‘frontier’ market for investors, venture capitalists and multinationals, a must-go for both citizen-tourists and global luminaries. This lecture will critically discuss the rose-tinted view of reforms in Burma against the troubling realties as lived by the people of that country, including full-scale Rohingya genocide of 40 years, the 60-years of Burmese army’s un-ending internal colonial wars against the Christian Kachins, the Kare...

রোহিঙ্গা শরণার্থীদের কোনো ভবিষ্যৎ নেই

বাংলাদেশের আশ্রয়শিবিরে বসবাসকারী রোহিঙ্গা শরণার্থীদের কোনোই ভবিষ্যৎ নেই বলে মন্তব্য করেছেন রোহিঙ্গা বিষয়ক আইনজীবী রাজিয়া সুলতানা। তিনি এই আশ্রয়শিবিরকে চিড়িয়াখানার সঙ্গে তুলনা করেছেন এবং রোহিঙ্গাদের ফেরত পাঠানোর জন্য একটি উপযুক্ত কৌশল নির্ধারণের আহ্বান জানিয়েছেন। কয়েকদিন আগে যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের পররাষ্ট্র মন্ত্রণালয়ের ইন্টারন্যাশনাল ওমেন অব কারেজ এওয়ার্ড (আইডব্লিউসিএ) পুরস্কার পান রাজিয়া সুলতানা। সাহসিকতা দেখানোর জন্য সারা বিশ্ব থেকে বাছাই করা ১০ জন নারীকে এ পুরস্কার দেয়া হয়।  রাজিয়া সুলতানার একটি সাক্ষাৎকার নিয়েছে বার্তা সংস্থা রয়টার্স। তাতে তিনি রোহিঙ্গাদের পরিণতি নিয়ে হতাশা প্রকাশ করেন। রাজিয়া সুলতানা বলেন, মিয়ানমারের মুসলিম সংখ্যালঘু সম্প্রদায়ের রোহিঙ্গা শরণার্থীদের মধ্যে আশার অভাব রয়েছে। ২০১৭ সালের আগস্টে মিয়ানমারের সেনাবাহিনীর নৃশংস নির্যাতনের ফলে তারা পালিয়ে এসে বাংলাদেশে আশ্রয় নিতে বাধ্য হয়। রাজিয়া সুলতানা বলেন, এই আশ্রয় শিবিরে যত বেশি সময় শরণার্থীরা থাকবেন ততই পরিস্থিতির অবনতি ঘটতে থাকবে। ওই সাক্ষাৎকারে তিনি আরো বলেন, হ্যাঁ, এ কথা সত্য যে, শরণার্থীরা খাবার পাচ্ছে। কিন...