Poverty drives Myanmar Rohingyas into death traps

[Coventina]

Source: Reuters

FADANARDALE, Bangladesh, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Mohammad Iqbal was one of a 250-strong group of stateless Rohingya who left Bangladesh a month ago in a rickety wooden boat, lured by agents promising a job in Malaysia.

Now his family is hoping he is one of those who survived brutal treatment at the hands of the Thai military who have admitted to towing hundreds of the Muslim boatpeople from Bangladesh and Myanmar far out in the Andaman Sea before cutting them adrift.

(snip)

More than 550 Rohingya, a Muslim minority group in pre-dominantly Buddhist Myanmar, are feared to have drowned in the last two months after being towed out to sea by the Thai military.

The Thai army has admitted cutting them loose, but said they had food and water and denied the engines were sabotaged.


Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUKDHA408299

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I've said it before, I'll say it again: What is up with Thailand lately?

[IntravenousDemilo]

1. Hmm, I think they meant Burma. Myanmar is what the junta wants the rest of us to call Burma. n/m