KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s coast guard will not turn away Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar and is willing to provide them temporary shelter, the maritime agency’s chief said on Friday.
Rohingya insurgents attacked several police posts and an army base in Myanmar on Aug. 25. The ensuing clashes and a military counter-offensive have killed at least 400 people and triggered an exodus of more than 160,000 to neighboring Bangladesh.
Malaysia, hundreds of kilometers to the south on the Andaman Sea, is likely to see more boat people from Myanmar in coming weeks and months because of the renewed violence, said Zulkifli Abu Bakar, the director-general of the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency.
However any such voyage would be hazardous for the next few months, because of the annual monsoon.
“We are supposed to provide basic necessities for them to continue their journey and push them away. But at the end of the day, because of humanitarian reasons, we will not be able to do that,” Zulkifli told Reuters, adding that no fresh refugees had been seen yet.
Malaysia, a Muslim-majority nation already home to more than 100,000 Rohingya refugees, will probably house the new arrivals in immigration detention centers, where foreigners without documents are typically held, he said.
Malaysia, which has not signed the UN Refugee Convention, treats refugees as illegal migrants.
Thailand has also said it is preparing to receive people fleeing the fighting in Myanmar.
Malaysia will send a humanitarian mission to help refugees seeking shelter at the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, Prime Minister Najib Razak said.
The mission, to be led by the Malaysian armed forces, is a “manifestation of Malaysia’s strong objection of the continued suppression of the Rohingya community by the Myanmar security forces,” Najib said in a statement.
The mission will leave on Saturday to review the situation in refugee camps. Malaysia Airlines and Malindo Air will help in the distribution of aid, the statement added.
Malaysia will hold talks with Bangladesh to set up a military hospital at the border, Najib added.
There are about 59,000 Rohingya refugees registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Malaysia although unofficial numbers are almost double.
In 2015, mass graves were exhumed at jungle camps on the border between Thailand and Malaysia that were thought to be mainly Rohingya victims of human traffickers.
Malaysia ready to provide temporary shelter for Rohingya fleeing violence
Malaysia ready to provide temporary shelter for Rohingya fleeing violence
Sri Lanka hospital releases 22 rescued Iranian sailors
- Sri Lankan authorities said the survivors from the Dena were being handled according to international humanitarian law
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka discharged from hospital 22 Iranian sailors who were plucked from life rafts after their warship was sunk by a US submarine, officials said Sunday.
The sailors were treated at Karapitiya Hospital in the southern port city of Galle since Wednesday after the IRIS Dena was torpedoed just outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters.
“Another 10 are still undergoing treatment,” a medical officer at the hospital told AFP.
He said the bodies of 84 Iranians retrieved from the Indian Ocean were also at the hospital.
Those discharged from hospital overnight had been taken to a beach resort in the same district.
Sri Lankan authorities said the survivors from the Dena were being handled according to international humanitarian law, and the government had contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross for assistance.
The island is also providing safe haven for another 219 Iranian sailors from a second ship, the IRIS Bushehr, that was allowed to berth a day after the Dena was sunk.
Sailors from the Bushehr have been moved to a Sri Lanka Navy camp at Welisara, just north of the capital Colombo, and their ship taken over by Sri Lanka’s navy.
Sri Lanka announced it was taking the Bushehr to the north-eastern port of Trincomalee, but an engine failure and other technical and administrative issues had delayed the movement, a navy spokesman said.
Sri Lanka has denied claims that it was under pressure from Washington not to allow the Iranians to return home, and said Colombo will be guided solely by international law and its own domestic legislation.
A US State Department spokesperson said the disposition of the Bushehr crew and Iranian sailors rescued at sea was up to Sri Lanka.
“The United States, of course, respects and recognizes Sri Lanka’s sovereignty in the handling of this situation,” the spokesperson told AFP in Washington.
India, meanwhile, said Saturday that it had allowed a third Iranian warship, the IRIS Lavan, to dock in one of its ports on “humane” grounds after it too reported engine problems.
The three ships were part of a multi-national fleet review held by India before the war in the Middle East started last week.
“I think it was the humane thing to do, and I think we were guided by that principle,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Saturday.
The Lavan docked in the south-west Indian port of Kochi on Wednesday.
“A lot of the people on board were young cadets. They have disembarked and are in a nearby facility,” Jaishankar said.
