Six people have been killed as hundreds of Rohingya Muslims flee Malaysian prison centres

[ASEAN NOW Content Team]

 

After more than 500 largely Muslim Rohingya migrants fled a temporary immigration detention centre in the country's north, Malaysia set up barricades and deployed police, immigration, and volunteer security forces.

After a riot in the facility, which was formerly used as a camp for Malaysia's short-lived national service programme, 528 Rohingya left the centre in the northern state of Penang a few hours before dawn on Wednesday.

 

Six persons were killed when they attempted to cross a nearby highway at about 6:50 a.m. (22:50 a.m. GMT on Tuesday) and were struck by fast-moving automobiles.

"The victims were scattered all over the roadway," said Atan, a nearby resident who witnessed the tragedy while bringing his children to school.
"It was a depressing scene."
Innocent lives were gone in the blink of an eye."

Women and children were seen jogging down the side of the road in the dark in videos uploaded on social media.
Others depicted groups of individuals squatting on the highway verge after being apprehended by police.

 

Local villagers "apprehended" 88 of those who had escaped the centre, according to the publication, while immigration official Khairul Dzaimee Daud said 362 people had been re-arrested by 10 a.m. (02:00 a.m. GMT) on Wednesday.

The Rohingya were able to flee the centre after smashing through obstacles and a door, according to Khairul.
There were 23 guards on duty at the time, and they requested assistance from the police and other law enforcement organisations, he said.

The reason for the riot and break-out is still being investigated.
Inside the time, 664 prisoners were being kept at the detention centre.

 

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled Myanmar five years ago, fleeing a horrific military campaign that is now being investigated by the International Criminal Court for genocide.
Many people stay in Bangladesh's massive refugee camps, while others undertake the increasingly deadly trek over the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea to reach Indonesia and Malaysia, despite the fact that neither nation is a member to the UN Refugee Convention.

According to the UN refugee agency, over 181,000 persons are currently living in Malaysia as refugees and asylum seekers, with Rohingya constituting about 57 percent of the total.