Shafaqna English– Over 40 Rohingya Muslims have been forced off an Indian navy ship this month near the shores of war-torn Myanmar with only a life jacket.
It has been more than a week since Akbar, a Rohingya refugee in India, has heard his niece’s voice, the longest they have not spoken to each other.
“I got her out of the lion’s mouth when we escaped Myanmar almost eight years ago. And now this has happened,” Akbar, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, said of his niece, who is around 20 years old. She is among the Rohingya refugees who have been abandoned at sea by India.
Myanmar’s Ba Htoo forces — opposition fighters battling the junta that took power in a 2021 coup — say the group landed on May 9 on a beach in Launglon Township near southern Dawei city, a region that regularly witnesses gunbattles and air strikes.
“We are helping them as human beings, and we will let them go where they want if it is safe,” a spokesman for the group said.
The mostly Muslim Rohingya have been persecuted in Myanmar for decades, with many fleeing a 2017 military crackdown. More than a million escaped to Bangladesh, but others fled to India.
There are around 22,500 Rohingya in India registered with the United Nations refugee agency, according to the advocacy group Refugees International.
Two other Rohingya refugees told AFP their relatives were part of the group that was detained by Indian authorities.
Tom Andrews, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, has called the repatriation an “unconscionable” act.
Andrews said he was “deeply concerned by what appears to be a blatant disregard for the lives and safety of those who require international protection.” New Delhi has not commented on the reports.
Family members say the group was summoned by authorities in New Delhi on May 6, allegedly to collect biometric data.
Two days after being detained, the refugees called family members back in Delhi saying they had been dropped off in the seas off Myanmar.
Indian media reported this month that more than 100 Rohingya were “pushed back” across the north-eastern border into Bangladesh.
Yap Lay Sheng, from the campaign group Fortify Rights, said the deportation of the Rohingya group was a “targeted attack against anyone perceived to be Muslim outsiders.”
Ramon, another relative of one of the deported group, said his brother told him he had been verbally abused.
Source: Arab News