Burma has detained around 150 Rohingyas suspected of trying to flee the country where they are victims of persecution and headed to Malaysia, a security source told AFP on Friday.
The group of children, women and men were intercepted in Thanbyuzayat (southeast), said the official, who requested anonymity and was not authorized to speak to the press.
“They hid in a hilly forest between two villages,” he added. “We started the arrests last night (Thursday) after receiving information.” He did not give the reason for the arrests.
According to initial information gathered by police, they had started their journey by boat from Rakhine State (West), hoping to get to Thailand and then Malaysia by road.
An unspecified number of suspected non-Rohingya smugglers have also been arrested and police are looking for 30 others involved, the source said.
According to human rights groups, members of the Rohingya Muslim community face travel restrictions within Burma, where they live in near-apartheid conditions.
Although they have been sedentary for generations, most of them have no access to citizenship, health care or education in this predominantly Buddhist country, which has been ruled by the army since the February 1, 2021 coup.
In 2017, a military crackdown prompted hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, amid harrowing reports of murder, rape and arson.
After this mass exodus, Burma is accused of genocide in the United Nations’ highest court.
These arrests come days after the ruling junta said it was ready to host Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh as part of a pilot repatriation program from mid-April.
This project involves “about 1,500 people,” a state newspaper said on Friday, citing an official in charge of cross-border affairs.
Burma has “not yet received a response” to his suggestion, he added, without specifying whether it came from the refugees concerned or from Bangladeshi authorities.
The returnees are accommodated “for a short time in a transit camp” before being distributed among fifteen villages.
“For their safety, we have police stations near the fifteen villages,” he said.
Every year, hundreds of Rohingya attempt a dangerous boat trip to Malaysia or Indonesia, two Muslim-majority countries.
Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, who has described the Rohingya identity as “imaginary,” was chief of the armed forces during the 2017 crackdown.