The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Children who arrived on a Rohingya boat off Phuket on January 1 Photo by phuketwan.com/file For years, thousands of ethnic Rohingya from Myanmar's Arakan State have set sail to flee persecution by the Myanmar (Burmese) government.  The situation significantly worsened following sectarian violence in Arakan State in June 2012 between Muslim Rohingya and Buddhist Arakanese, which displaced tens of thousands of Rohingya from their homes.  In October 2012, Arakanese political and religious leaders and state security forces committed crimes against humanity in a campaign of ''ethnic cleansing'' against the Rohingya.  During the so-called ''sailing season'' between October 2012 and March 2013, more than 35,000 Rohingya are believed to have fled the country.  International pressure on Thailand to provide temporary protection to Rohingya arriving on its shores resulted in the current detention policy. Since January, more than 1800 Rohingya...

Ten Rohingya refugees escaped the Ranong Immigration detention center in a dawn breakout yesterday. Photo: Gazette file PHUKET: Ten Rohingya detainees escaped at dawn yesterday from a detention facility at the Immigration Office in Ranong, the popular visa run destination for many expats and tourists in Phuket. The incident is the latest in a series of Rohingya escapes from various facilities in the past few months. The 10 escapees were part of a group of 118 Rohingya detainees at the facility. The Ranong Immigration Office has begun a manhunt for the 10 runaway Rohingya. "We have handed out their photos to motorcycle-taxi riders, community leaders and local people in a bid to track them down," office chief Ekkorn Bussababordin said, adding that he believed the 10 escapees were still in Ranong. Col Ekkorn said that he would step up security measures at the detention facility to prevent further escapes. Thousands of ethnic Rohingya from Myanmar's Arakan Sta...

An estimated 200 Rohingya refugees landed on the uninhabited island of Koh Racha Noi, 25 kilometers south of Phuket, this morning. Photo: Royal Thai Navy Phuket Gazette  January 29, 2013 PHUKET: An estimated 200 Rohingya refugees landed on Koh Racha Noi this morning, as reports simultaneously flooded in of another convoy, carrying about 180 men, women and children, coming ashore at Koh Phra Thong on the Phang Nga coast.

PHUKET : The plight of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar’s Rakhine State during the current sailing season clearly shows the need for Asean and other international bodies to come together to help solve, or at least alleviate, the root causes of the problem inside Myanmar as soon as possible.