Rethink pushback policy, Rohingya council urges after refugee boats turned away

Authorities have denied entry to boats of Rohingya refugees citing stricter entry controls due to Covid-19. (MMEA pic)

PETALING JAYA: The European Rohingya Council’s ambassador to Malaysia has urged the country to rethink its policy of pushing back overloaded boats of Rohingya refugees to sea.

This follows two reports of authorities denying entry to boats of Rohingya refugees this week, with stricter entry controls due to Covid-19 cited in both instances.

“While we understand the challenges the Malaysian government is facing during the (Covid-19) outbreak, we would like to persuade the Malaysian government to have a ‘change of heart’ on humanitarian grounds for the most persecuted minority in the world according to the United Nations,” Tengku Emma Zuriana Tengku Azmi said in a statement.

“We call on governments in the region, especially Asean members, to allow them immediate safe disembarkation (and) to urgently agree to emergency measures to prevent another humanitarian crisis while accommodating governments’ existing Covid-19 restrictions at their borders.”

The Malaysian navy prevented a boat with about 200 Rohingya refugees from entering Malaysian waters on April 16.

The previous day, Bangladesh coast guard officials intercepted another boatload of refugees that survivors said had been turned away from Malaysian waters almost two months earlier.

AFP quoted survivors as saying that 32 Rohingya died aboard the overcrowded vessel “and their bodies were thrown in the sea”.

More than 740,000 Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh after ethnic and religious violence in Myanmar in 2017, prompting genocide charges at the UN’s top court in January.

In a statement today, the Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organization Malaysia (Merhrom) urged the UN and Asean to pressure Myanmar to “stop the genocidal attack on Rohingya and restore Rohingya citizenship in Myanmar”.

“The UN and Asean must specifically address the root cause of this problem. If not, Asean will continue to receive the boat people,” said Merhrom president Zafar Ahmad Abdul Ghani. - FMT