1,500 Myanmar migrants return to Malaysia

THANLYIN, Myanmar — Nearly 1,500 Myanmar migrants from Malaysia arrived in their war-torn home country on Sunday, a Myanmar Navy official said, returned under an opaque repatriation scheme. Three ships carrying Myanmar migrants had all docked at the Myanmar Navy base in Thanlyin just before 7:30 am, said the naval official who Agence France-Presse (AFP) has kept anonymous as he was not authorized to speak to media. Kyaw Myint, 55, told AFP he was there to collect three grandchildren who had been in Malaysian detention for one and a half years, and who he has not seen in six years. “Since they arrived in prison we lost contact with them,” he said. Now Kyaw Myint is worried about them being conscripted — “not only by the military but also by ethnic armed groups,” he added. There are concerns members of the persecuted Rohingya are among the group, after Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced the returns against a backdrop of anti-Rohingya sentiment, but this has not been confirmed. Three Myanmar Navy ships left Malaysia on Tuesday carrying 1,476 migrants, according to the Myanmar government — the first of 5,000 that Anwar says Myanmar agreed to take back. The United Nations (UN) warns conditions in Myanmar, which has been consumed by civil war since a 2021 military coup, mean safe homecomings cannot be guaranteed as required under international law. “We have no idea how his life will be back in Myanmar,” said the 25-year-old sister of one migrant, who told his family he expected to be sent aboard the ships. “Our main concern is his arrival won’t be safe,” she told AFP from Malaysia, requesting anonymity for security reasons after losing contact with her brother before the vessels set sail. The arrivals were due to include 27 children and 79 women, Malaysian media said, the remaining 1,370 adult men. Free and informed Anwar announced the repatriations in July, just days after the detention of more than 100 Rohingya asylum seekers in Kuala Lumpur amid rising xenophobia against refugees, particularly the Rohingyas in Malaysia. News of the returns sparked widespread concern, as members of the ethnic group fled Myanmar en masse following a military crackdown starting in 2017, which rights experts say amounted to genocide. Malaysia insists all returnees agreed to voluntary repatriation from detention centers, where Myanmar says they had completed sentences for immigration offenses. ‘No time to return’ Malaysia is already moving ahead with plans to return a second group of more than 3,500 migrants. Migrants have “imposed a significant financial burden on the nation, triggered serious social crises, and created tangible security threats for the Malaysian people,” the home ministry has said. Myanmar leader Min Aung Hlaing, the coup leader who was installed as civilian president this April, is expected to soon visit Malaysia to discuss the scheme. Yap Lay Sheng, a senior human rights specialist with Fortify Rights, told AFP: “There’s no telling how the regime would treat returnees.” “This is no time to return anyone forcibly to a country plagued by egregious human rights violations and abuses,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said Tuesday.