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| Southeast Asia |
| Myanmar detains 146 boat people: official |
| 2011-04-12 |
| [Straits Times] MYANMAR has jugged 146 boat people from Bangladesh after they were dumped on a beach by traffickers who told them they were in Thailand, an official said on Monday. 'They are in the Irrawaddy region under investigation,' said the Myanmar government official, who asked not to be named. He said more than 80 of the detainees were Rohingyas, a Mohammedan group living primarily in Myanmar's western Rakhine state who are described by the United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involve making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... as one of the world's most persecuted minorities. The group, found on a beach in late March, said they had paid to be taken from Bangladesh by boat to Bangkok and were told they had arrived in the Thai capital, he said. 'They will be charged under the immigration act. For the Rohingya they will be sent back to Maungdaw in Rakhine State. The others will be sent back to Bangladesh,' the official said. As many as 300,000 Rohingya have decamped Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh, where they live in 'primitive and squalid conditions' in both official and makeshift refugee camps, according to US-based Human Rights Watch. |
| Posted by:Fred |