Boatpeople Land North of Phuket With BBC, Aljazeera Filming
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| Rohingya boatpeople were quickly transferred to police trucks yesterday (Photo - Phuket Wan) |
Chutima Sidasathian & Alan Morison
Phuket Wan
January 17, 2013
PHUKET: A group of 88 Rohingya boatpeople were apprehended and brought to shore north of Phuket yesterday under the gaze of the international media, the BBC and Aljazeera.
The boatpeople, including eight children and 10 women, will be assessed as Thailand reviews its policy towards hundreds of Rohingya still arriving by sea or recently ''rescued'' from people traffickers' secret camps.
One pregnant woman and her husband were sent to a small local hospital after the boat was spotted by local villagers off Pra Thong Island, near the large fishing township of Kuraburi in Phang Nga province.
The others in the boat were transferred to Kuraburi Police Station where the BBC, Aljazeera and Phuketwan photographed and interviewed them.
What emerged was a saga of enduring persecution by the Burmese Army. These people are all neighbors from the village of Debeng, near the town of Sittwe, where so-called ''community violence'' has targetted the oppressed and stateless Muslim minority.
Burmese soldiers and local police held the Rohingya of Debeng powerless at gunpoint while their Buddhist neighbors torched their homes, the newly-arrived boatpeople said today.
