Malaysia to return 1,500 Rohingya refugees next month, despite safety fears

First signifier of Malaysia’s repatriation program volition impact Myanmar nationals who are ‘willing to instrumentality voluntarily’.

Malaysia has finalised the archetypal signifier of a voluntary repatriation programme that volition spot astatine slightest 1,500 eligible Myanmar refugees instrumentality location connected September 29, the authorities said.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced successful July that Myanmar’s military-backed authorities had agreed to instrumentality backmost 5,000 members of the persecuted Rohingya number amid rising tensions with section communities successful Malaysia.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 3Malaysia detains much than 100 Rohingya seeking assistance from the UN
• list 2 of 3Malaysian overseas curate calls for reappraisal of UNHCR’s presence
• list 3 of 3Malaysia vows not to instrumentality Myanmar refugees if lives astatine risk

“The repatriation process volition usage 2 Myanmar naval warships and a infirmary ship,” according to a Malaysia Home Ministry statement.

It said much than 4,000 individuals, chiefly of taste Rohingya, volition beryllium channelled into the Refugee Registration Document (DPP) programme, portion 5,000 others volition acquisition the voluntary repatriation process, arsenic agreed with Myanmar.

There were 10,388 Myanmar nationals held astatine migration detention depots by mid-August, the ministry said, with not each considered refugees.

Malaysia’s migration section is moving with the constabulary to verify the identity, citizenship, migration status, asylum claims and information inheritance of those detainees by the extremity of the year.

Rights groups rise information concerns

Earlier this month, the authorities said it would not proceed with the repatriation if the refugees’ lives would beryllium astatine hazard upon return.

“Malaysia, arsenic a liable country, volition not instrumentality the 5,000 Myanmar refugees if they would either beryllium persecuted oregon their lives would beryllium threatened,” Fahmi Fadzil, the Malaysian communications minister, said.

Human Rights Watch has said conditions for a safe, dignified and voluntary instrumentality to Myanmar bash not presently exist, and warned that the Myanmar subject continued to perpetrate warfare crimes and crimes against humanity.

Malaysia has agelong been a harmless haven for Rohingya fleeing persecution astatine home, adjacent though it is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention and does not formally recognise exile status.

Despite that, it hosts 1 of Southeast Asia’s biggest exile populations and is location to much than 215,000 refugees and asylum seekers registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, including much than 126,000 Rohingya from Myanmar, the country’s largest exile community.

A antheral from the Rohingya assemblage walks to enactment carrying an aged pistillate aft they arrived connected a vessel from Myanmar to Bangladesh, astir 3 weeks aft fleeing unit successful Myanmar, connected September 14, 2017 [Dar Yasin/AP]

August 25 marked 9 years since Rohingya were forced to fly Myanmar’s Rakhine authorities to neighbouring Bangladesh to flight a brutal subject crackdown. Today, that fig stands astatine much than 1 million.

The Rohingya are a mostly Muslim taste radical who person lived successful Buddhist-majority Myanmar for centuries. However, Myanmar does not recognise them arsenic an authoritative taste group, making them the largest identified stateless assemblage successful the world.