Malaysia began sending back about 1,500 Myanmar nationals on Tuesday, the government confirmed, as it launched a scheme that rights groups say may endanger migrants and asylum seekers by returning them to the war-torn country. The group is the first of 5,000 Myanmar citizens that Kuala Lumpur says agreed to “voluntary” repatriation from detention centres amid a huge uptick in anti-migrant sentiment in Malaysia. Both the UN and advocacy organisations voiced concern on Tuesday, saying the group could face a dangerous homecoming in Myanmar, where a civil war has raged since 2021.
Neither Malaysia nor Myanmar have officially clarified the number of Rohingya people in the first group, and there is worry they may be returned to a country where they face persecution rights groups say amounts to genocide. The Rohingya, a Muslim minority group, make up two-thirds of the 190,000 Myanmar refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia, according to the UN. Many of the Rohingya escaped to Malaysia during a brutal military crackdown in 2017.
On Tuesday afternoon, reporters saw three ships belonging to the Myanmar navy, used in a previous repatriation exercise, departing from Malaysia’s Lumut naval base. The Myanmar nationals were processed at the naval base before boarding dozens of buses which arrived under police escort at the Majlis Perbandaran Manjung stadium. Malaysia’s interior ministry confirmed that the repatriations were under way.
It said it a statement that the repatriation was part of the government’s plan to resolve the “legacy issue” of foreign asylum-seekers in Malaysia – of which it said 95% were from Myanmar. But in Geneva, the UN rights chief, Volker Turk, urged Malaysia to stop the process immediately, saying nobody should be deported to Myanmar, given the severity of the situation on the ground. The plan was announced after authorities detained more than 100 Rohingya who had gathered outside the UN refugee agency’s office in Kuala Lumpur.
They were seeking help after being threatened with eviction from an informal settlement in northern Penang state. They were later released after officials confirmed they held valid UN documentation. Myanmar earlier this month pledged “safe and dignified” returns for its citizens displaced abroad, after criticism from the UN and rights groups.
Last week more than 160 civil society groups in a joint statement called upon the Malaysian government to “immediately halt the deportations,” pending talks with civil organisations about the situation on the ground in Myanmar. Malaysia, which shelters one of Southeast Asia’s biggest refugee populations, is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and does not formally recognise refugee status.
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