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Thailand to investigate alleged abuse of Rohingya migrants |
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by Salai Pi Pi
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Monday, 19 January 2009 22:58 |
New Delhi (Mizzima) - Thailand's Premier Abhisit Vejjajiva has assured local rights groups that he will address the problem of the alleged abuse of 400 Rohingya refugees from Burma and Bangladesh.
The Thai Prime Minister, on Monday met with officials of domestic rights groups and promised to investigate the charge of the Thai Navy's ill-treatment of about 400 Rohingya refugees, who illegally tried to enter Thailand from western Burma and Bangladesh, Somchai Homla-or, Chairman of the Campaign for Human Rights, told the press in Thailand.
Meanwhile, an official from Thailand's ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the government was undertaking further investigations regarding the allegation of torture against Rohingya migrants.
"We are still investigating what really happened," an official from Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Mizzima on Monday.
In early December, the Thai Navy had arrested about 400 people of the Rohingya community from Burma and Bangladesh, who had illegally tried to enter Thailand seeking work. They had been detained briefly before being left to drift in the sea with no engine, according to survivors.
"They said they were taken to an island off the Thai coast and beaten up before being forced into boats and pushed into the high seas," an Indian police official from Andaman and Nicobar islands told AFP.
The Indian Coast Guard, in its official statement, said it had found the boat drifting on the sea near Andaman Island and rescued a total of 99 people on December 29.
Indian Coast Guard officials also said that the refugees were drifted in the sea for two weeks and there were still 300 people missing in the sea.
Since December 2008, Indian Coast Guard has rescued around 446 people from Burma and Bangladesh near the Andaman Island.
Similarly, Indonesian authorities said, they had rescued a group of 193 people, Burmese Rohingyas and Bangladeshis, who had landed on Sabang Island in Aceh province on January 7.
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