Mass graves of migrants found in Malaysia [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Mass graves of migrants found in Malaysia

Local May 25, 2015

Mass graves feared to contain bodies of Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants and suspected human trafficking detention camps have been discovered in Malaysian towns and villages bordering Thailand, said the Malaysian home minister on Sunday.The discovery follows a similar discovery earlier this month by police in Thailand, who unearthed at least 33 bodies from shallow graves on the Thai side of the border.Malaysian home minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was quoted by The Star newspaper’s website as saying the graves were found near suspected detention camps run by people-smugglers, according to Reuters.‘But we do not know how many graves are there. We are probably going to find more bodies,’ Zahid was quoted as saying.
Police discovered 30 mass graves containing the remains of hundreds of people in two places in the northern state of Perlis, which borders Thailand, the Utusan Malaysia newspaper reported.
The Star newspaper reported on its website that nearly 100 bodies were found in a single grave on Friday.
‘I reckon it was a preliminary finding and eventually I think the number would be more than that,’ Ahmad Zahid said when asked about reports of the number of mass graves discovered.
‘They have been there for quite some time. I suspect the camps have been operating for at least five years,’ he said.
A police official who declined to be identified said police commandos and forensic experts from the capital, Kuala Lumpur, were at the site but it was not clear how many graves and bodies had been found.
‘Of course I believe that there are Malaysians involved,’ Ahmad Zahid said, when asked on possible involvement of locals in the incidents.
Northern Malaysia is on a route for smugglers bringing people to Southeast Asia by boat from Myanmar, most of them Rohingyas, who say they are fleeing persecution, and people from Bangladesh seeking work due to poverty.
Smugglers have also used southern Thailand and Utusan Malaysia and police believe the discovery had a connection to mass graves found on the Thai side of the border this month.
Twenty-six bodies were exhumed from a grave in Thailand’s Songkhla province, over the border from Perlis, near a camp with suspected links to human trafficking.
More than 3,000 migrants, most of them from Myanmar and Bangladesh, landed on boats in Malaysia and Indonesia this month after a crackdown on trafficking in Thailand.
With traffickers apparently now abandoning their human cargo at sea, boats filled with hundreds of starving migrants from the two countries have sought desperately to land in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, which turned them away.
In the face of mounting international pressure, Malaysia and Indonesia last week said they would admit boat people, who were to be repatriated or resettled with the help of international agencies.
Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak on Thursday pledged assistance and ordered the navy to rescue thousands adrift at sea.
Indonesia’s military said Sunday that president Joko Widodo had ordered the country to start search and rescue operations for stranded migrant boats, an operation that began Friday.
‘We will save the migrants and take them to shore,’ military spokesman Fuad Basya told Agence France-Presse, adding that as of late Saturday, no new boats had been sighted.
Previously, Indonesian fishermen helped hundreds of stranded Bangladeshis and Rohingya to shore.
The Malaysian government announced Thursday that its navy and coastguard would be mobilised for search operations but so far it had not reported any rescues.
Most Bangladeshis are economic migrants seeking to escape poverty at home. The Muslim Rohingya leave Myanmar in large part to escape persecution and discriminatory treatment from the Buddhist majority.
On Friday, Myanmar’s navy said it had carried out its first rescue of a migrant boat, when 208 men were found crammed in a wooden fishing vessel. Most were Bangladeshis, according to Myanmar officials.
However, possibly thousands more are still thought to be at sea, with perilous summer monsoon weather due to arrive. UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday that finding and saving the lives of those at sea should be a ‘top priority’.