By AFP
Nearly 100 Rohingya Muslims were forced back
to Myanmar's Rakhine state after being detained at sea en route to Malaysia,
police said Wednesday, stirring fears of a fresh refugee boat crisis.
Three vessels carrying fleeing Rohingya have
now been seized and returned to Rakhine over the past two weeks, as the monsoon
season gives way to more favourable, if still treacherous, sailing conditions.
All on board the third boat were being returned
to camps around the capital Sittwe in the central part of the state, where more
than 120,000 people have been confined since intercommunal violence in 2012.
A photo in local media showed the group
huddled on the deck in the baking sun, a scene reminiscent of the boat crisis
in 2015 that saw countless Rohingya abandoned by smugglers in the Andaman Sea
after authorities shut down trafficking routes.
They were headed for Malaysia when stopped by
navy officers on Sunday night off the southern town of Dawei, Police Major Min
Lwin told AFP.
"They were all sent back to Sittwe on a
navy boat last night," he said, adding that the group, two thirds of whom
were under the age of 18, would arrive on Thursday or Friday.
The plight of Rohingya Muslims languishing in
the central part of the state has been overshadowed by last year's mass exodus
of more than 720,000 Rohingya from northern Rakhine.
Those refugees fled over the border into
Bangladesh to escape a brutal military crackdown.
UN investigators want Myanmar's top generals
to be prosecuted for genocide over the crackdown, but Myanmar says it was
defending itself against Rohingya militants.
Around 10 boats, carrying a total of several
hundred people, have left the camps in central Rakhine since mid-October, said
Arakan Project director Chris Lewa, whose group monitors abuses against the
Rohingya.
"I'm worried about Bangladesh. The
border guards say they won't let people leave but if people do then the numbers
would be much bigger," she said.
Desperation in the refugee camps across the
border is also growing.
A repatriation deal has stalled, with
Rohingya refusing to go home until their safety and rights are secured.
The stateless minority are denied citizenship
in Myanmar and face severe restrictions on movement as well as a lack of access
to work, healthcare and schools in what Amnesty International says amounts to
apartheid.
One camp leader told AFP under the condition
of anonymity that they try to explain to people about the dangers of leaving by
boat but many are simply too desperate to listen.
"We are losing hope," he said.
"Nothing has changed in the last six years."