“International Community Lack of Action Encouraged Driving Out Rohingyas From Burma” Said BROUK President Tun Khin In BBC Interview

RB News

May 15, 2015

Several thousand people are still believed to be stuck in boats off the coasts of Thailand and Malaysia. 

Most are Rohingya Muslims who cannot go back to Myanmar, also known as Burma, where they are not recognised as citizens of the country and are regularly persecuted. 

Some of those who are adrift in the Andaman Sea have been provided with food, water and medicine by the Thai navy. 

It is not clear how many other boats are in a similar predicament. 

Some boats containing migrants have been towed over to the Malaysian side of the border - where most migrants want to go - only to be taken back into Thai waters. 

"No-one wants them," the BBC's Jonathan Head says, and seeing them off the southern coast of Thailand, near Koh Lipe, that it is a "desperate sight" as they beg for food and water. 

On one crowded vessel with a lot of women and children on board, our correspondent saw people drinking their own urine from bottles. 

The migrants - including 50 women and 84 children - said they had been at sea for three months. 

Their situation became critical when their crew abandoned them without a working engine six days ago anchored near the Thai-Malaysian border. 

Late evening on Wednesday Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK President Tun Khin mentioned about why Rohingyas fleeing from their own native land at BBC studio in London. Tun Khin said “The government is trying to get all Rohingyas to get out of Burma. That is systematic plan of President Thein Sein government and International Community lack of action encouraged President Thein Sein Government to drive out Rohingya from Burma. Denying citizenship, imposing restrictions on movement, marriage, education and created state sponsored violence against the Rohingya pushing them into camps, then blocking off aid. The government's policy for them gives the the choice to stay in the camps or leave from Burma.”