Two men from among 198 Rohingyas found off Indonesia this week said they had been rounded up in Thailand, beaten and cast adrift in a rickety, engineless boat by Thai authorities. Thailand's treatment of the Rohingyas, an oppressed Muslim minority from mainly Buddhist Myanmar, has been widely condemned as evidence emerges that hundreds were rounded up by the Thai military and towed out to sea.
The Thai army has admitted towing hundreds of the Rohingyas far out to sea and cutting them adrift but has insisted they had adequate food and water and denied reports the boats' engines were sabotaged. Neither Thailand's chief government spokesman nor the Thai Foreign Ministry had any immediate response to the latest allegations of abuse.
Early this week, a boatload of 198 Rohingyas arrived in Indonesia's Aceh province, including some who were in critical condition after three weeks at sea. Last month, a boat carrying 193 Rohingyas was also stranded in Aceh. A number of boat people in Indonesia have previously made claims to Reuters and other media they were mistreated while in Thailand.
Rahmat bin Mohammad Daud Yullha, 37, told Reuters in broken Malay he had been jailed for praying in a mosque in Myanmar and then fled to Thailand looking for work. "I was caught and detained for three months. They beat me every day. Everyday (I) only drunk a gulp of water," said Yullha, who said he was a baker with a wife and three children at home.
"I beg to stay in Indonesia. I want to bring my kids and wife. Instead of going back to Burma, I'd rather be shot in Indonesia. I want to die in the hands of the Muslims," he said. He said he was held and detained on a boat on an island in Mae Sok in the southern Thai province of Ranong. "Everyday they added ten people until our boat was full and we were towed to the open sea and set adrift," Yullha said.
The plight of Myanmar's estimated 800,000 Rohingya has been in the headlines since reports of abuse by the Thai military against the boat people. Nurullah, 20, another of the men in the boatload found on Monday, said Thai authorities had detained him two weeks after he had arrived in Thailand, where he had found work as a fisherman.
Nurullah, who also said he was from a village in Myanmar, used hand signals and a few words of English to tell his story to reporters, at times on the brink of tears. He said he was a biology teacher, and that he left Myanmar because there were no jobs. Pointing to scars on his back and hand, he said he was beaten, put in an engineless boat with about 200 other people, and set adrift by the Thai authorities. "It's hard," he said.
"I (am) afraid (for) my mother and sisters. I don't know about them," he said. He and about 70 others from the boat are being treated in hospital for dehydration and exhaustion. Jakarta has said it considers the boat people economic migrants who should be deported under Indonesian law. "We will not let any human rights violation happen to them," said Indonesia's foreign ministry spokesman, Teuku Faizasyah.
Although most Rohingya are heading for Malaysia, where a sizeable diaspora lives, 1,000 Thais in Ranong protested on Tuesday against the migrants, saying they would not allow any sort of temporary refugee shelter in the area. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 230,000 Rohingya now live in Bangladesh, having fled north-west Myanmar after decades of abuse and harassment at the hands of its military rulers.
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