Tuesday, 23 Feb 2021 06:54 PM MYT
BY IDA LIM
An immigration truck carrying Myanmar migrants to be deported from Malaysia is seen in Lumut February 23, 2021. Reuters pic
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KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 23 The Immigration Department of Malaysia has announced that it has deported 1,086 Myanmar citizens, whom it described as illegal immigrants today, with the announcement made just hours after a High Court’s order to temporarily suspend any efforts to deport 1,200 individuals to Myanmar for one day.
In a statement this evening, Immigration Department of Malaysia’s (JIM) director-general Datuk Khairul Dzaimee Daud said the department had along with the cooperation of the Malaysian Armed Forces particularly the Royal Malaysian Navy, the National Task Force (NTF) and the Myanmar Embassy successfully carried out the programme today to repatriate the 1,086 individuals.
[Reuters]
Malaysia plans to deport asylum-seekers among the 1,200 Myanmar nationals it is sending home next week, a refugee group told BenarNews on Thursday, while rights groups expressed shock at a move they said would endanger lives after the military coup.
Among those who will be deported are at least nine members of the ethnic Chin community who, like Rohingya Muslims, face state-backed discrimination in their country, said James Bawi Thang Bik, of the Kuala Lumpur-based Alliance of Chin Refugees.
“We have nine people [who want asylum] from my community and they are from the conflict zone in our country,” Thang Bik said late Thursday, referring to the Chin and Rakhine states, where Myanmar’s army and Arakan Army rebels have been involved in deadly clashes since November 2018.
Rights Groups Attack Malaysia’s ‘Abhorrent’ Deportation Plan
Shortly after its coup d’etat, Myanmar’s military junta offered to help Malaysian authorities deport some 1,200 people.
February 19, 2021
A Malaysian flag hangs in the home of refugees from Myanmar, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Credit: Flickr/Overseas Development Institute
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Human rights groups have excoriated the Malaysian government’s planned deportation of 1,200 people back to Myanmar next week, as the latter’s military government comes under increasing international pressure following the coup of February 1.
On February 12, the government of Malaysia accepted an offer by the army to send three navy ships to repatriate 1,200 Myanmar nationals held in Malaysian immigration detention centers.
Bangladesh sends more Rohingya refugees to new island amid criticism from human rights bodies
The government has said the arrangement is good for the refugees and the island is designed to offer better living conditions.
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Rohingya refugees headed to the Bhasan Char island leave on navy vessels from the south eastern port city of Chattogram. (Photo| AP) By Associated Press
DHAKA: Bangladesh authorities sent a fourth group of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to a newly developed island in the Bay of Bengal on Monday despite calls by human rights groups for a halt to the process.