Thai immigration official says boat people to be expelled soon

Jan 31, 2009, 8:50 GMT

   Bangkok - Thailand will deport the latest group of Rohingya boat people to arrive from Burma, a top immigration official said Saturday.

   A group of 78 Rohingyas who claim to be refugees from Myanmar's dire economy will be repatriated 'just as soon as we have found a way to do this humanely,' Immigration Commissioner Lt-Gen Chatchawan Suksomchit said.

   The latest arrivals, including a dozen children, were apprehended by the Thai Navy on Tuesday, and are in custody of the immigration police.

'We have no doubt about the correct course of action. The law is clear: illegal immigrants will be ejected. We just have to do this in a good way,' Chatchawan said.

   Thailand faced widespread international condemnation after reports surfaced alleging that hundreds of refugees may have died after the Thai military towed boatloads of Rohingyas out to sea in December.

   New Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva has since promised a full investigation and to cooperate with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to find a long-term solution to the plight of the Rohingya, a minority Muslim group from the North Arakan State in Myanmar.

   Myanmar's junta denied the Rohingya citizenship in 2006, and has been persecuting the Muslim community of Bangladeshi origin since the early 1990s. An estimated 250,000 Rohingyas live in refugees camps in Bangladesh.

   Thousands risk their lives annually searching for work in neighbouring South-East Asian countries. According to Thai authorities, about 20,000 illegal Rohingyas are already living in the kingdom.

Reports that the Thai navy had beaten and dragged out to the high sea at least six boatloads of Rohnigyas in December, began to emerge earlier this month based on the testimony of survivors who were rescued by the Indian and Indonesian navies.

   The refugees claimed that at least 500 of the boat people have gone missing and are feared drowned.

   The UNHCR was denied access to 126 Rohingya boat people who were still thought to be in Thai custody last week.

   But the Thai foreign ministry said they had been 'escorted' out of Thailand before the UNHCR could interview them.