Trafficking abuse of Myanmar Rohingya spreads to Malaysia
Stateless Muslims are captured by gangs who beat them, and demand a ransom from families
Human traffickers have kept hundreds of Rohingya Muslims captive in houses in northern Malaysia, beating them, depriving them of food, and demanding a ransom from their families, according to detailed accounts made by the victims.
The accounts suggest that trafficking gangs are shifting their operations into Malaysia as authorities in Thailand crack down on jungle camps near the country’s northwestern border that have become a prison for the Muslim asylum seekers fleeing persecution in Myanmar.
Police in the northern Malaysian states of Penang and Kedah have conducted several raids on the houses in recent months, including an operation in February that discovered four Rohingya men bound together with metal chains in an apartment.
But interviews reveal a trafficking network on a far bigger scale than authorities have acknowledged so far, with brokers herding groups of hundreds of Rohingya over the border at night and holding them captive.
The abuse in Malaysia is the latest oppression against the Rohingya. They are mostly stateless Muslims from western Myanmar, where clashes with majority Buddhists since the middle of 2012 have killed hundreds and forced about 140,000 into squalid camps.
Many of the tens of thousands of Rohingya fleeing Myanmar by boat have fallen into the hands of human traffickers at sea who then hold them hostage in remote Thai camps near the border with Malaysia until relatives pay thousands of dollars to release them, according to an investigation published on December 5.
Some were beaten and killed, others held in cages where they suffered malnutrition. The investigation found Thai authorities were sometimes working with the traffickers in an effort to push the Rohingya out of Thailand because immigration detention camps were getting overwhelmed with asylum-seekers.