A group of 65 Rohingya Muslims have been found on a shipwrecked boat off the coast of southern Thailand, navy officials said yesterday as authorities investigated whether they had been trafficked.
The boat was discovered early on Tuesday in the Tarutao Marine National Park in southern Thailand, about 400km from the border of Myanmar.
About 740,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar since a military crackdown in 2017 against the stateless minority in the Buddhist-majority country.
Most have escaped into overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh, while others have fallen prey to human trafficking rings as they seek better lives in Malaysia or Thailand.
There were 31 women and five children among the Rohingya on the shipwrecked boat, Thai Navy spokesman Vice Admiral Khan Deeubol said.
One Thai man and five Burmese citizens were also in the group.
The men said they were fishing in the area and had no link to the Rohingyas.
The six men “were detained for questioning because of their suspicious behavior,” Deeubol said.
A provincial official said the group was initially investigated for illegal entry, but the probe had broadened.
“Authorities are not ruling out other issues such as human trafficking,” an Internal Security Command source in Satun Province told reporters.
Photographs from the navy showed the group on a beach, some eating rice near the marooned ship.
Bangladeshi authorities have intercepted several suspected traffickers seeking to transport refugees from squalid camps in Cox’s Bazaar, where nearly 1 million Rohingyas are living — almost all refusing to go back to Myanmar out of fear for their safety and rights.
Myanmar has said the crackdown was aimed at rooting out insurgents who attacked military posts. It has signed a repatriation agreement with Bangladesh to return Rohingya refugees, but so far virtually none have volunteered to go back.
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