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.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
NASA on Thursday said that the long-delayed launch of Artemis 2, the first crewed flyby mission to the moon in more than 50 years, could come as soon as April 1. “We are on track for a launch as early as April 1, and we are working toward that date,” Lori Glaze, a senior NASA official, told a news conference, after technical difficulties delayed a launch originally expected last month. “It’s a test flight, and it is not without risk, but our team and our hardware are ready,” she said. “Just keep in mind we still have work” to do. The US space
RSS