Today's Updating Special Report
PHANG NGA TOWN: Ninety-six people on a boat from Burma were at sea for two months before being dumped by a trafficker on an island off Thailand, passengers told Phuketwan today.
Thirsty, hungry and exhausted, the men, women and children are now beginning to recover from their epic and dangerous voyage while Thai officials determine their fate.
Thousands of others who would like to find sanctuary in Thailand, Indonesia or Malaysia remain in peril on seas around the region, unwanted on shore and with their ultimate fate uncertain.
Ten passengers from a second boat were also being interviewed today. Little is known about the second boat.
The newly-arrived group abandoned by a trafficker was brought to mainland Thailand overnight by the Royal Thai Navy after spending three days on a beach at Surin island, a popular destination for divers, where they had been left to their own devices.
The process of interviewing the group was beginning this morning at the Immigration centre in Phang Nga Town, in the province of the same name north of Phuket.
Phuketwan talked with boatpeople today in what's believed to be the first direct account from the fleeing Rohingya and Bangladeshis caught up in the present wave of boats stranded at sea.
The strandings follow a crackdown on trafficking camps in Thailand and the refusal of Malaysia and Indonesia to allow more boats to land.
Through a translator, 10-year-old Muhammed said that he had been kidnapped and never intended to leave his parents in Burma.
''I want to go back,'' he said. ''I was grabbed by a gang and found myself on the boat. I want to go back home and stay with my parents.''
Kidnaps have been reported more frequently over the past year, most often from Bangladesh, as touts entice or coerce young men mostly to try their luck at better paid work in Malaysia.
The 10-year-old boy's account is the first that Phuketwan has heard of a child being kidnapped alone from Burma, also known as Myanmar.
On board the small vessel were 38 boys, 15 girls, 50 men and three women, mostly from Buthiduang in Burma's troubled Rakhine state.
It's not known whether other children on the boat also claim to have been kidnapped but there appear to be a larger proportion of children than normally found in boats fleeing Burma.
One of the women, Asina Bakum, 35, said that she had also boarded the boat in Buthiduang, accompanied by her five children.
''My husband is already in Malaysia,'' she said. ''We were told we would be taken to Malaysia.''
She said that the boat was loaded gradually, with a smaller boat ferrying three to five passengers at a time to the larger boat.
''We were given one meal a day,'' she said.
The Thai trafficker did not beat them and, after a meal and being provided with fresh clothes, the group looked reasonably healthy after their two-month sea voyage.
Asina said that she still needed time to recover and asked for pain-killer for a headache.
If the boy's claims of being kidnapped can be substantiated and also apply to other children, the group is likely to be declared human trafficking victims rather than illegal immigrants.
Thailand's Cabinet was told on April 28 that 363 Rohingya and 275 Uighurs from China are being held in 11 detention centres or family shelters around Thailand.
At that meeting, plans were discussed for a budget of 9.9 million baht to build a new detention centre for 450 immigrants, to be completed as soon as possible.
A longer term solution was also discussed involving a camp for 2000 near Bangkok. Cabinet was told that 174 women and children - 139 Rohingya and 35 Uighurs - had been declared human trafficking victims.
Today, a larger vessel carrying 450 men, women and children was reported to be bound for Aceh in Indonesia after the motor war repaired by the Royal Thai Navy.
The whereabouts and movements of as many as six other vessels reported to be laden with Rohingya and Bangladeshis are not known.
Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said this afternoon: "Thailand needs to recognise that it must allow these desperate boat people ashore for humanitarian reasons, and that pushing them back to sea will only result in more preventable deaths.
''This group of 96 who landed on Surin island may be safe, but there are thousands more boat people still on the high seas who need to be brought safely to land.
''Instead of implementing a 'help on' policy, which is a cagey government way of describing what is really a heartless push off policy, Thailand needs to have a straightforward 'help' policy - providing assistance and protection to all these boat people without preconditions.''
Myanmar should be thrown out of ASEAN if they cannot abide by humaan rights principles
Posted by Guenter Bellach on May 15, 2015 13:36
Editor Comment:
Indeed. But when responsible nations and less responsible nations exchange ideas, it would be a mistake to assume the less responsible are the ones who will learn new tricks. Not a single member of Asean has any understanding of human rights.