More than 50 Refugees Arrested near Thai-Malaysian Border

02 April 2011: The Malaysian Immigration has arrested more than 50 Chin refugees including women near Ipoh city of Perak State in Malaysia around 1am local time last Saturday while heading for the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

The Chin refugees, who are believed to have been smuggled out of Burma towards Malaysia via Thailand by different ‘agents’, are being held in a detention centre near the Thai border, according to Chin Refugee Committee (CRC).

“So far, we have only got a total name list of 37 detainees, with 24 males and 13 females. We have learned that they are being detained near the Thai-Malay border but are not sure if all of them are in the same detention centre or if they have been transferred somewhere else,” a CRC member in Kuala Lumpur told Chinland Guardian.

It is claimed that the Malaysian authorities have tightened the security measures along the Thai-Malay border in an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country, currently home to more than an estimated 90,000 UNHCR-registered refugees.

When asked about the responses made by the community-based organisation, the CRC member continued: “There is nothing we can do in this matter to help those being detained, apart from collecting names and giving the name list to the UNHCR.”

In another incident last Monday, the Malaysian Immigration raided a work place in Kelantan State in the north-east of Peninsular Malaysia, arresting about 12 working Chin refugees. As of today, no updates on their situation have been known yet.

Van Biak Thang
[email protected]