Detainees who escaped were refugees, held there for two years

All 528 detainees who fled the Sungai Bakap immigration detention centre yesterday had been held there since 2020.

Home Minister Hamzah Zainuddin said they were all refugees of Rohingya ethnicity.

However, he stressed Malaysia does not recognise their refugee status.

"In this matter, I stress that Malaysia does not acknowledge the refugee status, and they are in the country on a humanitarian basis.

"As such, everyone in Malaysia, including foreigners, must abide by local laws," he said in a statement yesterday.

Six detainees had died after hundreds broke out of the detention centre, located on the border of Kedah and Penang.

As of this morning, 448 of them have been detained again and held in four detention centres in three states, Kedah police said.

As of January, there are 103,560 Rohingya refugees and asylum-seekers registered with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, in Malaysia and are awaiting resettlement in a third country.

Hundreds of Rohingya refugees landed in Langkawi in 2020, but many did not survive the journey.

In June, coastguards who suspected a migrant boat off Langkawi were set to push it out to international waters, but when approached, dozens of those on board jumped into the sea and were detained.

Two months before that, Malaysia intercepted and turned back another boat carrying 200 Rohingya.

Two survivors told the AFP that 60 died on a boat crammed with hundreds of people in the Bay of Bengal after Malaysia and Thailand denied it entry.

Rohingya refugees have fled in the hundreds of thousands since the renewed violence against them in the Rakhine state of Myanmar in 2017.

The United Nations said forces against the Rohingya showed "genocidal intent".

The Rohingya are also fleeing policies like birth and movement control and poverty, estimated at 78 percent in the Rakhine State, compared to the national average of 37.5 percent.

Most Rohingya refugees fled to neighbouring Bangladesh and lived in crowded camps in the Cox's Bazar district. - Mkini