By Pei Hu
Impunity Watch Reporter

BANGKOK, Thailand – Refugees International, a US based human rights group, has accused Thailand of mistreating illegal immigrants that travel to Thailand by boat. Many of these refugees, dubbed ‘boat people’ by the Thai officials, are from neighboring Myanmar-Burma and Bangladesh.

There are about 500 survivors that are now recovering from severe dehydration in India’s Andaman Islands and Aceh provinceof Indonesia. Survivors told BBC journalists that the Thai navy would tie their hands and send their boats back out to sea without engines. During a press release on Monday, 4 refugees have died and 300 refugees are reported missing.

The Thai officials declined to comment and only confirmed that the Thai navy would push Asylum seekers’ boats back out to sea. Refugees International said the Thai government “should instruct its Army to desist from its new and troubling policy of pushing refugees and migrants intercepted on boats back out to sea.”

Many of these refugees are Rohingya peoples, a Muslim ethnic minority that live in western Burma. Rohingya are among one of the most persecuted peoples in the world.  They have no legal rights, including the right to own property in Burma, because the country is predominately Buddhist. Due to oppression many Rohingya have sought refuted along the western coast of Thailand. Many of these asylum seekers are detained by the Thai military that leave Rohingya refugees to fend for themselves in international waters.

International human rights advocate, Sean Garcia said, “The Thai government is taking highly vulnerable people and risking their lives for political gain. Instead they should be engaging the Burmese government on improving conditions at home for the Rohingya if it wants to stem these flows.”

For more information, please see:

BBC – Thais ‘Leave Boat People to Die’– 15 January 2009

Irrawaddy –Thailand Urged to Stop Pushing Refugees Out to Sea– 15 January 2009

AsiaNews – The Tragedy of Rohingya Refugees Arrested in Thailand and Abandoned in the High Seas– 15 January 2009