OVER 500 ROHINGYA MUSLIMS FOUND IN THAI CAMP

Bangkok, 27 Rabi’ul Awwal 1435/29 January 2014 (MINA) – Over 500 Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar have been discovered in a police raid on a suspected human-trafficking camp in Thailand.

Thai police said that about 530 Rohingyas, including women and a five-year-old child, were found at a rubber farm in the south of the country near the border with Malaysia on Sunday, AFP reported.

Police Colonel Kan Tammakasem said that the refugees “were hungry and some of them are sick,” adding that the Rohingyas had hoped to travel to Malaysia.Three Thai men guarding the camp have been detained.

The Rohingya men have been taken to detention centers, and the women and the child to local shelters, according to Chatchawal Suksomkit, the deputy commissioner general of the Royal Thai Police, Press TV quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting,Tuesday

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About 800,000 Rohingyas in the western Myanmar state of Rakhine are deprived of citizenship rights due to the policy of discrimination that has denied them the right of citizenship and made them vulnerable to acts of violence and persecution, expulsion, and displacement.

The Myanmar government has so far refused to extricate the stateless Rohingyas from their citizenship limbo, despite international pressure to give them a legal status.

Rohingya Muslims have faced torture, neglect, and repression in Myanmar for many years.

Hundreds of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and thousands displaced in attacks by Buddhist extremists.

The extremists frequently attack Rohingyas and have set fire to their homes in several villages in Rakhine. Myanmar army forces allegedly provide the fanatics containers of petrol for torching the houses of Muslim villagers, who are then forced to flee.

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Myanmar’s government has been accused of failing to protect Rohingya Muslims.

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has also come under fire for her stance on the violence. The Nobel Peace laureate has refused to censure the Myanmar military for its persecution of the Rohingyas.

Rohingyas are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pathan origin, who migrated to Myanmar as early as the 8th century.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have issued separate statements, calling on Myanmar to take action to protect the Rohingya Muslim population against extremists. (T/P012/E01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)