5 replies to this topic

[B.I.G.]

"Almost 200 refugees from Myanmar, rescued by the Indonesian Navy after drifting aboard a wooden boat at sea for almost three weeks, are receiving treatment at a hospital in Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra, Indonesian officials said Tuesday. The migrants, all of them men, were found by a local fisherman Monday afternoon. It is the second boatload of refugees from Myanmar to land in Aceh in the last month.

Interviews by Indonesian Navy personnel indicated the men are all part of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar who had fled to Thailand in December.

Survivors from the first boat, which was found in early January and was also carrying about 200 men, told Indonesian authorities at the time that they had been rounded up by the Thai military after escaping Myanmar, and then were beaten, towed out to sea and abandoned.

The survivors rescued Monday told Navy personnel the same story, adding that originally there was a flotilla of nine motorless boats that had been led out to sea by the Thais, containing about 1,200 people.

“Based on interviews with some of the survivors there were originally 220 people on the most recent boat, but 22 people died at sea,” Tedi Sutardi, a naval commander in East Aceh, said in an a telephone interview. “We know that nine ships originally left Thailand, so we will monitor the waters around Aceh for the possibility of finding any remaining boats.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/world/as...tml?_r=1&hp

[Haloi]

"Wounds and welts on the bodies of nearly 200 Burmese migrants plucked from seas off Indonesia this week support claims they were beaten by the Thai military, health workers said Wednesday.

"The injuries we've seen on them are consistent with their claims that they had been abused by the Thai military," the head of the Idi State Hospital in Aceh province, where 68 of the migrants are still being treated, told AFP. . .

A nurse at the hospital, Herman, said separately: "Many have scars from being caned at the back, the wounds have dried up and there are visible welts on their skin."

The 198 migrants from Burma's Rohingya Muslim minority, who were rescued at sea off Sumatra island Monday, have said they were detained and beaten before being set adrift with few supplies by Thai soldiers after washing up on the country's shores late last year.

The boat people are the latest of hundreds of Rohingyas of an estimated 1,000 who the migrants have said were abused by Thai soldiers. Rights groups believe scores are still at sea, feared dead. The scandal has been a major embarrassment to the fledgling government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, which has denied military cruelty.

Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya knocked back Wednesday fresh allegations of cruelty by the latest group of Rohingyas, saying the boat people had been treated "under international humanitarian principles".

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/13...ck-abuse-claims

[TheYenta]

It's absolutely nauseating to watch the Thai foreign minister get on TV and say that the government's "official policy" is to treat refugees humanely, as if that policy was followed here, while totally avoiding answering questions about who in the military were responsible for the outrageous way these boat people were obviously treated.

[Gene]

It's absolutely nauseating to watch the Thai foreign minister get on TV ...

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.........Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse:

"Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said Wednesday that people should not believe international news reports about the Rohingya boat people being treated inhumanely in Thailand.

International news agencies have reported that a group of 198 boat people, rescued in Indonesia on Monday, had been towed out to sea by the Thai military three weeks ago. Twenty-two had died during the crossing, the survivors told Indonesian officials.

Kasit played down the report saying he would only listen to official reports from Indonesian authorities.

The plight of the Rohingya people was highlighted as the Thai navy was accused of abandoning nearly 1,000 of them in the high seas in December. Some were rescued by the Indian coast guard and some by Indonesian fishermen who discovered the 12metre boat off Aceh's coast in northern Sumatra and towed it to shore on Monday."

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingne...t-Rohingya'

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[UncleSam]

Do you get the feeling sometimes we retired in Burma ?

Hehehe.....

[Haloi]

Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said Wednesday that people should not believe international news reports about the Rohingya boat people being treated inhumanely in Thailand

Who are we supposed to believe: The Colonel who killed all the muslims at the Kru Se Mosque, who was apparently also in charge of "taking care" of the Rohingya refugees ? It never ceases to amaze me how the Thais seem genetically incapable of admitting error. They would rather lie than admit a mistake and "lose face" - as they see it - especially the military, who can do no wrong in the eyes of the Bangkok elite. They either don't know or don't care that they look like hypocrites.