Authorities in Myanmar have seized a boat carrying 93 people, apparently Rohingya Muslims, fleeing displacement camps in western Rakhine State and hoping to reach Malaysia, an official said yesterday.
The boat was believed to be the third bound for Malaysia stopped in Burmese waters since monsoon rains began to subside last month, bringing calmer weather, raising fears of a fresh wave of hazardous voyages after a 2015 crackdown on people smugglers.
Fishermen had reported a “suspicious” boat to authorities, said Moe Zaw Latt, director of the government office in Dawei, a coastal town in southern Myanmar.
The Myanmar Navy on Sunday stopped the boat and detained the 93 people, who said they had come from the Thae Chaung camp in Rakhine’s capital, Sittwe, he said.
Thae Chaung is about 900km northwest of Dawei and holds internally displaced people, most of whom are stateless Rohingya.
“They said they ran away from the camp. They said they intended to go to Malaysia,” said Moe Zaw Latt, adding that authorities were preparing to send them back to Sittwe yesterday.
Photographs showed police standing by as passengers — many of them children and women in headscarfs — huddled on the deck.
The boat resembled vessels Rohingya typically use to escape the apartheid-like conditions in Rakhine, where their movements and access to services are severely curtailed.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has said Myanmar must “address the root causes of displacement,” including the lack of citizenship for Rohingya, who consider themselves native to Rakhine.
Myanmar regards Rohingya as illegal migrants from the Indian subcontinent and has confined tens of thousands to sprawling camps outside Sittwe since violence swept the area in 2012.
More than 700,000 Rohingya last year crossed into Bangladesh fleeing an army crackdown in the north of Rakhine, UN agencies have said.
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