India accused of returning Rohingya refugees to Myanmar

UN launches inquiry into reports of refugees forced off Indian Navy vessel

- Rohini Mohan

BENGALURU - Fisherman Nye Nge Soe was returning from a night's work to his village in Tanintharyi, the southernmost region of Myanmar, when he saw dark figures bobbing among the waves about 50m from the shore.

"It was almost dawn. From my boat, I saw a ship dropping many people into the sea. I could hear them shouting," Mr Nye Nge Soe told The Straits Times over the phone, when describing events on the night of May 8.

"They had life jackets, but the water is 2m deep there. There were old people and women who could not swim. A ship crew (from our village) threw them a long rope. I watched the people swim to the shore holding this rope," the 22-year-old said.

It was only in the light of dawn that Mr Nye Nge Soe realised that the people they had rescued were Rohingya — an ethnic Muslim minority group in Myanmar.

As the villagers gave the new arrivals food, water and dry clothes, the refugees told them that they had been deported from India.

In the same week that India was exchanging fire with Pakistan on the western border, its government deported at least 40 Rohingya refugees from May 6 to 9 from its eastern coast to Myanmar.

UN URGES INDIA TO STOP DEPORTATIONS The UN has launched an inquiry into reports that the refugees were forced off an Indian Navy vessel and into the Andaman Sea, which it called "unconscionable" and "an affront to human decency".

About the same time, India "pushed back" 50 Rohingya men and women from the north-eastern state of Assam into Bangladesh. This means that instead of formal repatriation, they were sent walking across the border.

The UN and global refugee rights organisations have urged India to stop deporting Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar, where they face life threats, persecution and ethnic cleansing.