Mizzima-Oct 4
Nearly 1,500 Myanmar migrants sent back from Malaysia arrived in their war-torn home country on Sunday, according to the navy, returned under an opaque repatriation scheme.
Hundreds of families were gathered at dawn to collect their relatives outside the Myanmar Navy base in Thanlyin, where cars, taxis and busses were parked in ranks preparing to take them away. Kyaw Myint, 55, told AFP he was there to collect three grandchildren who had been in Malaysian detention for one and a half years, and who he has not seen in six years.
“Since they arrived in prison we lost contact with them,” he said.
Now Kyaw Myint is worried about them being conscripted — “not only by the military but also by ethnic armed groups”, he added. There are concerns members of the persecuted Rohingya are among the group, after Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced the returns against a backdrop of anti-Rohingya sentiment, but this has not been confirmed.
Three Myanmar Navy ships left Malaysia on Tuesday carrying 1,476 migrants, according to the Myanmar government — the first of 5,000 that Anwar says Myanmar agreed to take back.
But the United Nations (UN) warns conditions in Myanmar, which has been consumed by civil war since a 2021 military coup, mean safe homecomings cannot be guaranteed as required under international law. The arrivals were due to include 27 children and 79 women, Malaysian media said, the remaining 1,370 adult men. Rohingya make up the majority of Myanmar refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia, but Kuala Lumpur has not responded to an AFP query about the number onboard. Anwar announced the repatriations in July, just days after the detention of more than 100 Rohingya asylum seekers in Kuala Lumpur amid rising xenophobia against refugees, particularly the Rohingyas in Malaysia. Read more at:
https://eng.mizzima.com/2026/10/04/39241–Mizzima-Oct 4
Nearly 1,500 Myanmar migrants sent back from Malaysia arrived in their war-torn home country on Sunday, according to the navy, returned under an opaque repatriation scheme.
Hundreds of families were gathered at dawn to collect their relatives outside the Myanmar Navy base in Thanlyin, where cars, taxis and busses were parked in ranks preparing to take them away. Kyaw Myint, 55, told AFP he was there to collect three grandchildren who had been in Malaysian detention for one and a half years, and who he has not seen in six years.
“Since they arrived in prison we lost contact with them,” he said.
Now Kyaw Myint is worried about them being conscripted — “not only by the military but also by ethnic armed groups”, he added. There are concerns members of the persecuted Rohingya are among the group, after Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced the returns against a backdrop of anti-Rohingya sentiment, but this has not been confirmed.
Three Myanmar Navy ships left Malaysia on Tuesday carrying 1,476 migrants, according to the Myanmar government — the first of 5,000 that Anwar says Myanmar agreed to take back.
But the United Nations (UN) warns conditions in Myanmar, which has been consumed by civil war since a 2021 military coup, mean safe homecomings cannot be guaranteed as required under international law. The arrivals were due to include 27 children and 79 women, Malaysian media said, the remaining 1,370 adult men. Rohingya make up the majority of Myanmar refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia, but Kuala Lumpur has not responded to an AFP query about the number onboard. Anwar announced the repatriations in July, just days after the detention of more than 100 Rohingya asylum seekers in Kuala Lumpur amid rising xenophobia against refugees, particularly the Rohingyas in Malaysia. Read more at:
