BANGKOK — The Thai armed forces have been accused of towing hundreds of migrants out to sea last month and leaving them to their fate with inadequate food and water and only paddles as a means to reach land.
The migrants allegedly arrived off Thailand’s Andaman coast after setting sail from Bangladesh. Most of them are from the Rohingya ethnic minority, tens of thousands of whom have fled to Bangladesh to escape repression and economic hardship in their homeland in western Burma (also known as Myanmar).
The Thai authorities are accused of towing them back out to sea on barges without engines and abandoning them. Reports in the regional news media say that hundreds have died and that many bodies have been found trapped in mangrove forests around India’s Andaman Islands. Hundreds more people, starving and dehydrated, have been rescued by Indian and Indonesian authorities after days adrift.
Human rights groups say that as many as 1,000 refugees may have been picked up and that more than 300 remain unaccounted for.
The Thai government has denied that it is official policy to tow the migrant boats out to sea but says it is launching an investigation into the allegations.
“Thai officials are currently investigating and verifying all the facts and surrounding circumstances,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday.
Kitty McKinsey, the Thailand spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the agency was concerned about the reports, adding, “We have requested the Thai authorities to make sure that the Rohingya people are treated humanely and in line with international standards.”
Thailand is not a signatory to the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention.
There are about 28,000 registered Rohingya refugees in U.N. camps in Bangladesh, but it is estimated that 100,000 to 200,000 others also live in the country. Groups of Rohingya, with smaller numbers of Bangladeshis, regularly set sail in rickety boats to look for work in Southeast Asia.
“This has been going on for a few years, that there have been boats leaving from Bangladesh,” McKinsey said. “They are trying to get to Malaysia.”
