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Thailand will investigate reports that the Thai navy abandoned migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar on a barge in the ocean where hundreds of them may have drowned, according to an AP report.
Quoting the Thai Foreign Ministry, the AP report from Bangkok also said it will reassess the overall situation of illegal immigration in light of the incident and would attempt to work with neighboring countries to better address the problem.
“Thai officials are currently investigating and verifying all the facts and surrounding circumstances,” the ministry said in a statement, referring to the late December incident where more than 100 Myanmarese and Bangladeshi workers were rescued by Indian authorities from a barge adrift near the Andaman Islands.
“In accordance with our immigration laws, we’re committed to maintaining our traditional adherence to humanitarian principles and the protection of human rights,” the ministry said.
It is the first reported incident of the Thai navy forcing a boat out to sea rather than detaining the migrants as was policy in the past.
The United Nations refugee agency demanded an explanation from Thailand Friday for the incident, which has been denied by Thai navy and immigration officials for weeks, the AP report said.
The migrants-Myanmarese refugees in Bangladesh known as Rohingyas and Bangladeshi nationals-were attempting to land their boats in Thailand and proceed by land to neighboring Malaysia where they planned to get work. Indian authorities say 300 workers are still missing and presumed dead based on interviews with survivors.
Washington-based Refugees International and Bangkok-based advocacy group Arakan Project say that several other boats containing as many as 1,000 migrants have been intercepted since December by the Thai navy and forced back out to sea.
A boat containing 193 people reportedly ended up on Sabang Island off the Indonesian province of Aceh where they are being held on a naval base, according to reports earlier this week in The Jakarta Post and the New Delhi-based Mizzima newspaper. It was impossible to independently verify the account.
Chris Lewa, coordinator of the Arakan Project, said she interviewed at least two survivors who were on the boat that ended up near India’s Andaman Islands.
The survivors were detained on a remote Thai island in early December, where they were beaten, tied up and given little food, Lewa said, recounting the survivor’s accounts. They were then intimidated into boarding a barge, she said.
“They tied the legs of some of them and threw four overboard,” she said.
Survivors said Thai sailors left them with only two barrels of water and four bags of rice, Lewa said.
The Thai military has taken into custody another group of asylum-seekers from Burma’s Rohingya minority.
It comes amid accusations – denied by the military – that units set hundreds of refugees adrift at sea last month.
A boat carrying 46 Rohingyas was intercepted yesterday morning off an island in southern Thailand, police confirm.
Survivors who drifted to Indonesia and the Andaman Islands accuse the Thai military of towing them out to sea in boats with no engines and no food.
The commander of the military units responsible for dealing with asylum-seekers has denied the accusations.
However, testimony from exhausted and dehydrated survivors who have reached the Andaman Islands or Indonesia’s Aceh province over the past week describes brutal treatment at the hands of the Thai security forces.
They say they were detained on an offshore island, then pushed onto boats without engines, and with their hands tied. They say many of the asylum-seekers died trying to swim back to land.
Privately, some Thai military and police sources have admitted to the BBC that this has been happening – they say the escalating numbers of Rohingyas reaching Thailand from Burma or Bangladesh are seen as a security risk, because of fears they may include Islamic militants.
The reason they disable their engines, they say, is to prevent them trying to come back to Thailand.
Refugee welfare groups have condemned the practice as inhumane.
The Thai government says it has ordered an investigation of the incident, but stressed that is committed to humanitarian principles in handling illegal immigration.
Thailand accommodates millions of illegal migrants, mainly from neighbouring Burma, but takes a hard line against some, forcibly deporting those thought to threaten security.
Courtesy: nation.ittefaq.com
