Police to investigate if Rohingya were trafficked to Rawi Island

By The Nation

 

 

These Rohingya were spotted on Satun’s Rawi Island on Tuesday. A probe is underway to determine whether they are humantrafficking victims.

 

Authorities are now investigating whether the more than 60 Rohingya people discovered on Satun’s Rawi Island were victims of human trafficking.

 

Officials revealed that they had noticed a boat on the island on Tuesday and went to investigate.

 

On the island, they found 65 Rohingya – 31 men, 30 women and four children.

 

A source said the group was with a Thai national. The refugees have been provided with food and water, and will very likely face deportation. 

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30370915

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-06-11

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Look on the bright side at least they had a day on the beach. "Look out love, grubs up!", "Hooray!" they cheered.

 

 

Deporting them to a place back where they might be killed, so much for victims of trafficking... they were happy to escape there prolly or they wouldn't have paid someone to bring them to the island.

Quite obviously on their way to Malaysia where they would have gotten refugee status i assume...

 

 

Helpful thais ????

Rohingya Muslims found stranded on Thai island - officials

 

Rohingya men are seen on a beach after a fishing boat carrying more than sixty Rohingya refugees was found beached at Rawi island, part of Tarutao national park in the province of Satun, Thailand, bordering with Malaysia, according to officials, June 11, 2019. Department of National Parks Wildlife and Plant Conservation/Handout via REUTERS

 

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A fishing boat carrying more than 60 Rohingya Muslims was found beached on an island in southern Thailand on Tuesday, officials said.

 

The passengers - 28 men, 31 women and five children - were stranded on Rawi island in Tarutao National Park in Thailand's southern Satun province after the boat suffered engine trouble, a park official told Reuters.

 

Scores of Rohingya Muslims have boarded boats in recent months to try to reach Malaysia, part of what authorities fear could be a new wave of people smuggling by sea after a 2015 crackdown on trafficking.

 

A Satun government official said the passengers would be transferred to the mainland.

 

"Everyone will be investigated in order to see whether they are victims of trafficking or illegal immigrants," said the official who declined to be named.

 

More than 700,000 Rohingya crossed into Bangladesh in 2017 fleeing an army crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine state, according to U.N. agencies.

 

Myanmar regards Rohingya as illegal migrants from the Indian subcontinent and has confined tens of thousands to sprawling camps in Rakhine since violence swept the area in 2012.

 

The unrest prompted tens of thousands of Rohingya to flee Myanmar by sea. The exodus peaked in 2015, when an estimated 25,000 people crossed the Andaman Sea for Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, many drowning in unsafe and overloaded boats.

 

(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um and Panarat Thepgumpanat; editing by Darren Schuettler)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-06-12

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Send them on to Malaysia where they were headed.