Kidnapped Girls, Mass Graves & U.S. Surveillance Flights

By Richard S. Ehrlich

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Armed kidnappers in Myanmar seized young girls and other ethnic Rohingyas, brutalizing and imprisoning them on overloaded boats to sell them to traffickers and corrupt officials in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, survivors said according to New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The forced victims were mingled among thousands of other stateless Rohingya Muslims who voluntarily paid to escape racist oppression in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, also known as Burma, HRW said in a May 27 report titled: "Accounts from Rohingya Boat People."

A dozen local men "dragged me to the boat, they had sticks and threatened to beat me," said Yasmine, a 13-year-old girl from southwest Myanmar, according to HRW.

"I screamed, I cried loudly. My parents were weeping, but they couldn't do anything," she said.

"The [boat] doors were always locked. The smugglers put the food and water through a small hole, we never saw them. We were only allowed to go to the toilet once a day," Yasmine said.

Six men, "Buddhists from Bangladesh, they had knives and guns. They forced me to get on a boat," said another Rohingya girl, Arefa, age 16.

"I was there for two months...I was sick, throwing up, I stayed on that boat just like dead people," Arefa said.

Some Rohingyas paid for passage, believing tales of decent jobs in Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia, or here in Buddhist-majority Thailand.

Others simply wanted to join relatives who illegally traveled earlier.

The Rohingyas joined impoverished ethnic Bengali Muslims from neighboring Bangladesh -- mostly economic migrants -- who usually also paid traffickers for passage.

Some vessels were recently abandoned to drift in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal, because traffickers feared possible crackdowns by governments in the region, often resulting in vicious fights among passengers for meager rations.

A U.S. Pacific Command Navy P-8A Poseidon plane has started flying surveillance missions from Subang, Malaysia, looking for ships illegally packed with Rohingyas and Bangladeshis, according to the U.S. government's Voice of America (VOA).

"The U.S. on May 24 began conducting maritime surveillance flights off the west coast of Malaysia," the American Embassy in Bangkok told VOA.

"The flights are consistent with our offer to assist governments in the region to improve their understanding of the situation in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal."

U.S. officials "consult with governments in the region, regarding their needs and the best ways the U.S. can support them providing humanitarian assistance for vulnerable migrants in the region," the embassy said.

At least 3,600 Rohingyas and Bangladeshis made it to shore in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia during May, often rescued by local fishermen.

Other recent arrivals suffered in sinister-looking cages of wood and barbed wire in jungle camps on both sides of the Thai-Malaysian border, under the control of unidentified traffickers.

During the first week of May, Thai authorities found 36 corpses in makeshift graves in Songkhla province's hilly jungle next to Thailand's side of the frontier, presumably linked to illegal trafficking.

On May 25, Malaysian security forces discovered 139 shallow pits with more corpses at now-abandoned camps near Wang Kelian and Padang Besar in Perlis state, in a rugged, isolated zone on the Malaysian side of the border.

The dead on both sides of the border are presumably Rohingyas and Bangladeshis who perished from torture, hunger or disease while traffickers demanded thousands of dollars in extra cash as ransom to continue overland.

"Baby shoes were found inside camps abandoned by smugglers, who left in a hurry," said Malaysia's Channel News Asia reporter Melissa Goh, indicating a pair of white scuffed tiny sandals found near the 139 graves.

"Also found in one of [the] mass graves, a 2 week old corpse, highly decomposed," she tweeted.

Malaysian authorities wrapped freshly disinterred corpses in white sheets and laid them on black tarpaulin in the dirt where the camps had been hidden by dense foliage.

The "graves found on Malaysian soil [are] purportedly connected to people smuggling," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak stated.

"I suspect the camps have been operating for at least five years," said Home Affairs Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

Forensic teams in Malaysia and Thailand are now examining the decomposing bodies to determine how long they had been buried and their identities.

"They are tainting Bangladesh's image in the international arena," Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on May 24, describing her country's desperate migrants as "mentally sick."

"There is sufficient work for them, still they are leaving the country in such disastrous ways," Ms. Hasina said, according to government-run Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha news agency.

"Along with [trafficking] brokers, punishment will have to be given to those who are moving out of the country illegally," she said.

Myanmar's officials denied any of their citizens are fleeing, and insist all Rohingyas came into Myanmar from Bangladesh illegally during past decades -- a denial condemned as false by international human rights groups.

Today, harassed by scattered storms, more Rohingyas and Bangladeshis may be trapped on boats unable to land, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Washington has called on the region's governments to stop the smugglers and rescue the Rohingyas and Bangladeshis so they can be temporarily sheltered, returned home or offered permanent sanctuary somewhere.

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Richard S. Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based journalist from San Francisco, California, reporting news from Asia since 1978, and recipient of Columbia University's Foreign Correspondent's Award. He is a co-author of three non-fiction books about Thailand, including "Hello My Big Big Honey!" Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews; 60 Stories of Royal Lineage; and Chronicle of Thailand: Headline News Since 1946. Mr. Ehrlich also contributed to the final chapter, "Ceremonies and Regalia," in a new book titled King Bhumibol Adulyadej, A Life's Work: Thailand's Monarchy in Perspective.

His websites are

http://asia-correspondent.tumblr.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/animists/sets

https://gumroad.com/l/RHwa

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