Myanmar authorities arrest suspected Rohingya traffickers

BANGKOK (AP) — Authorities in military-run Myanmar have arrested 12 people accused of illegally transporting members of the Rohingya Muslim minority across the country to Malaysia, including 13 who apparently died by suffocation while hidden in a fuel tanker.

The state-run Mirror Daily reported on Wednesday that suspected members of a human trafficking gang were accused of organizing the smuggling of 255 Rohingya from refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh to Malaysia, more than 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles) by road.

Security forces arrested the accused traffickers on December 9 and 16 and seized six vehicles, including a fuel truck used in the trafficking operation. Thirty-one Rohingya waiting to continue on to Malaysia were also arrested in the past two weeks, the report said.

More than 700,000 Rohingya, concentrated in the western state of Rakhine, fled to refugee camps in Bangladesh after a brutal 2017 counterinsurgency campaign waged by the government in response to attacks by a Rohingya insurgent group. They fled to escape Myanmar security forces, accused of mass rapes, murders and the burning of thousands of homes.

Difficult conditions in Bangladesh refugee camps have pushed groups of Rohingya to try to flee to Malaysia and Indonesia, more prosperous countries in Muslim-majority Southeast Asia.

Many attempt to make the perilous journey by sea on small boats, but others take the land route, taking the road on a route that takes them first to Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, then to Thailand and finally in Malaysia, even if they risk being arrested. there.

They are also threatened with arrest during the Myanmar leg of their trip, as the Rohingya are subject to travel restrictions, and many are arrested. The Rohingya have long faced discrimination and legal and social persecution in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar.

According to the newspaper, the trafficking suspects carried out five operations to take a total of 255 Rohingya from Rakhine state to Yangon. The newspaper identified the Rohingya as “Bengalis,” a term used to suggest they are illegal immigrants, even though the families of many of them have lived in Myanmar for generations.

It says the Rohingya were charged 700,000 kyats ($332) each for travel from Sittwe, a town in western Myanmar, to Yangon, where a new group of brokers were to arrange the next leg of their journey, until 'on the border with Thailand.

On December 5, local media reported that 13 bodies believed to be Rohingya were found near a roadside trash pile in a village about 24 kilometers north of Yangon.

According to an article published Wednesday in the Mirror Daily, these 13 people were among the last 33 of the 225 Rohingya sent by traffickers to Malaysia.

It said the 33 Rohingyas were loaded into different compartments of a fuel tanker from Sittwe which arrived in Ngape commune in the central Magway region on December 4.

The tanker's ventilation cover was opened to let air in along the road except when passing security checkpoints, but 13 Rohingya who were in the tanker's rear compartment were found dead upon arrival in Yangon, and their bodies were dumped by humans. traffickers, the report said.