Thailand seeks help with boat people from Myanmar and Bangladesh
Thailand is buckling under the burden of sheltering and feeding hundreds of boat people over the past month, the government said as it appealed for help from rights groups and non-governmental organisations.
Thailand is buckling under the burden of sheltering and feeding hundreds of boat people over the past month, the government said as it appealed for help from rights groups and non-governmental organisations.
Many of the arrivals are Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority from Myanmar, while others are Bangladeshi.
It comes as the US yesterday urged Myanmar to draft a new plan to allow the ethnic Rohingya minority to become citizens and to scrap a plan to send them to detention camps if they refuse to identify themselves as Bengalis.
Most of Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya are stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions in Rakhine state on the west coast of the predominantly Buddhist country. Almost 140,000 are displaced after deadly clashes with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in 2012.
"Taking care of them is a burden for Thailand and we have to use a lot of money to look after them," Colonel Banpot Phupian, a spokesman for the military's Internal Security Operations Command, said. "The international community is saying respect their rights but Thailand has to fend for itself and has to arrange food and other basic necessities for these people."
The boats often sail from Myanmar and Bangladesh to Thailand where human-trafficking gangs hold boat people in jungle camps until relatives pay ransoms to secure their release.
An estimated 12,000 Rohingya have set off from Rakhine since October 15. Most are heading for Malaysia but many end up in Thailand after being intercepted by authorities or traffickers.
Myanmar plans to require Rohingya to identify themselves as Bengali - a term that implies they are from Bangladesh despite having lived in Myanmar for generations - in order to possibly receive citizenship.
