Myanmar Minority Group in Peril

WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (OneWorld.net) - Hundreds of Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya people seeking refuge in Thailand are missing since being forcibly expelled to sea by Thai authorities.

An estimated 28,000 Rohingyas live in UNHCR refugee camps in Bangladesh. © Austcare - World Humanitarian Aid (flickr)"Last week the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) voiced strong concern over allegations that the [Thai] Government had intercepted a large number of incoming Rohingya boat people in Thai waters, towed them back out to sea, and left them to die," reports the UN News Center. There are more than 200,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, with another 28,000 living in UNHCR camps, adds the UN.

The Rohingya people are a majority-Muslim ethnic group from the northwest of predominantly Buddhist Myanmar. Although their numbers are estimated at about 800,000, they are not officially recognized by the ruling military junta and denied citizenship, effectively making them stateless. As the targets of decades of persecution, many Rohingyas flee to neighboring countries and fear returning home to Myanmar. One refugee, found by the Indonesian authorities floating at sea with nearly 200 other Rohingyas, told the Reuters news agency: "If we go back, we'll definitely be killed."

Myanmar's military junta has been widely criticized by human rights advocates for its long history of human rights abuses, including discrimination against minority groups, violent repression of rights activists, and unlawful imprisonment and abuse of political opponents. A recent report by international monitor Human Rights Watch documents the forced labor, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, religious repression, and other restrictions on fundamental freedoms imposed on the ethnic Chin group in Myanmar's western Chin state.

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Indian govt. should protect Chin refugees: HRW

New York (PTI): India should extend protection to Chin refugees fleeing "abuses and severe repression" in Myanmar, a leading international human rights group urged on Wednesday.

The Chin people, mostly Christians living in the remote mountains of northwestern Myanmar, are subject to forced labour, torture, extra-judicial killings and religious persecution by the country's military regime, New York-based Human Right Watch alleged.

It estimated that as many as 100,000 people had fled the Chin homeland into neighbouring India and urged the Indian government and the Mizoram state government to protect them and not to force them back into Myanmar.

"For too long, ethnic groups like the Chin have borne the brunt of abusive military rule in Burma," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "It is time for this brutal treatment to stop and for the army to be held to account for its actions. India should step forward to protect those desperately seeking sanctuary."

In the 93-page report HRW said, its findings were based on extensive research carried out from 2005 to 2008 among Chins currently living in Chin state and those who cross the border to Mizoram for trade, it said.

Others interviewed have fled the country permanently, most in recent years. It provides a rare glimpse into the plight of the "forgotten people."

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