Thai police search for Rohingya who escaped a detention center

Bangkok: Thai police have launched a search operation for a group of Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled a detention center in the south of the country, an official said here on Friday. Nineteen Rohingya, who was slated to be deported to Myanmar, escaped on Wednesday from the detention center in Songkhla province and so far four have been apprehended - three of them in Thailand and one by Malaysian authorities, Chalit Chokamonpanich, Immigration Police director in the region, told Efe news.

“The Rohingya were arrested three months ago when they tried to cross the border between Thailand and Malaysia and now we are carrying out the procedures for deportation with the cooperation of the Department of Social Development,” Chokamonpanich said. Many Rohingya flee to Malaysia, a Muslim majority country that already has a large community of the minority.

Thailand, a transit country for Rohingya fleeing to Malaysia, is not a signatory of the UN refugee convention, so it regularly stops refugees and asylum seekers it considers undocumented migrants and returns them to their countries of origin. In 2015, Thai authorities dismantled a human trafficking network with links to police and soldiers. (IANS)

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