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Roundup: Thai navy keeps Rohingya boat at bay

Xinhua, May 14, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Thai navy spotted and kept out a boat carrying Rohingya migrants in the Andaman Sea near an island off southern Thailand on Thursday.

The vessel with an unidentified number of Muslim migrants aboard was spotted near Lipe island off Satun province but was denied by a Thai navy patrol boat the chance to get ashore, said a navy officer who asked not to be named.

However, the Thai navy unit gave the migrants food and fuel so they could carry on their sailing in the sea in search of asylum in a third country, according to the navy officer.

"The Thai government has no policy to harbor migrants anywhere in Thai territory but we may provide them with food and fuel purely on humanitarian basis," he said.

Hundreds of other Rohingyas reportedly sailed on the Andaman Sea and were spotted off Malaysia's Penang state but were denied access to disembark by the Malaysian authorities as well.

Thousands of Rohingyas had fled a strife-ridden Rakhine state in Myanmar only to have fallen prey to human traffickers who had tried to smuggle them across the Thai-Malaysian border from Songkla province in southern Thailand to Malaysia's Perlis state over the last few weeks.

In Thailand, more than 200 Rohingyas were recently rescued while apparently lost in the woods along the Thai-Malaysian border in Padang Besar and neighboring areas of Songkla while the remains of 33 deceased migrants were found in a graveyard, barely half a kilometer from the border.

They were believed to have been brought into Thai territory by human traffickers who only did so for extorted money, according to the police.

Each of the migrants may have paid up to 5,000 U.S dollars to the human traffickers in exchange for their being given shelter and hired for a job in a third country, the police said.

Malaysia was widely viewed as a preferred destination for the Muslim Rohingyas and Bangladeshis, with many of whom having ended up being victimized by those criminals.

Arrest warrants have been issued for more than 60 Thais suspected as human traffickers, including several local politicians in Satun and Songkla provinces, according to deputy Thai police chief Pol Gen Aek Sangsananont.

Less than half that number of suspected human traffickers had been either arrested or turned themselves in to the authorities so far.

Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said on Thursday he would find temparary shelter for the Rohingyas but will not allow them to stay in Thai territory on long-term basis.

Taking care of those migrants will be a heavy task for Thailand, which happened to be "in the middle of a migration course," the prime minister said.

He said third countries may provide some assistance for Thailand, given such burdens to provide food, clothing and lodging for the migrants on temporary, humanitarian basis.

He reassured that he had instructed the authorities in southern Thailand to see to it that human trafficking rackets will be eradicated and all suspected to have been involved in the crime, including any government personnel, will be arrested and taken to justice. Endi