Irrawaddy/AFP-Feb 5
More than 40 exhausted and hungry Rohingya refugees have been recaptured by Malaysian police following a detention center breakout by 131 migrants from Myanmar, a senior police official said Sunday. On Thursday, a total of 115 Rohingya migrants and 16 others—all of them men—rioted in their detention building before escaping the Bidor temporary immigration center in northern Perak state. The Rohingya experience persecution in their predominantly Buddhist homeland of Myanmar, with many fleeing to affluent, Muslim-majority Malaysia or to refugee camps in Bangladesh. They often endure harrowing, months-long sea journeys to arrive in Malaysia by boat or sneak into the country via its porous border with Thailand. If caught, they are usually sent to detention centers that rights groups say are typically overcrowded and filthy. The 41 Rohingya men were rearrested at a palm oil estate and in the forest surrounding the nearby towns of Tapah and Bidor after a public tip-off, Perak police chief Mohamad Yusri Hassan Basri told AFP. In 2022, 528 Rohingya refugees escaped from detention in northern Penang state. Recent months have seen a surge in ethnic Rohingya fleeing Myanmar, with the United Nations recording 1,752 such refugees, mostly women and children, arriving in Indonesia from mid-November to late January. The agency said it was the biggest influx into the Muslim-majority country since 2015. Read more at: https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/asia/41-rohingya-refugees-arrested-after-fleeing-malaysian-detention-center.html
