|
Wounds and welts on the bodies of nearly 200 Myanmar migrants plucked from seas off Indonesia this week support claims they were beaten by the Thai military, medics said Wednesday.
"The injuries we've seen on them are consistent with their claims that they had been abused by the Thai military," the head of the Idi State Hospital in Aceh province, where 68 of the migrants are being treated, told AFP. "There were several marks on the skin which were likely the result of being hit with blunt objects like sticks or rope. One of them had scars from being whipped with a rope on his body," Doctor Zulfikry, who goes by one name, said.
A nurse, Herman, said: "Many have scars from being caned on the back. The wounds have dried up and there are visible welts on their skin." The 198 migrants from Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority, who were rescued off Sumatra island Monday, have said they were detained and beaten before being set adrift with few supplies by Thai security forces after washing up on the country's shores late last year. They said they were among about 1,200 Rohingya migrants who were abused by the Thais and dumped at sea. About 850 have been rescued in Indian and Indonesian waters in recent weeks, all telling the same stories. Rights groups fear scores may have perished. The scandal has been a major embarrassment to the fledgling government of Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, which has denied military cruelty .
Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban denied the latest allegations on Wednesday, saying the boat people had been treated "under international humanitarian principles". Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said: "Please wait for the Indonesian official investigation -- don't believe the foreign media reports." One of the Rohingya migrants, 43-year-old Rahmat, told AFP in hospital Tuesday the migrants had spent three weeks at sea with little food or water after being detained and beaten on a Thai island and then cast adrift. "During the journey, 20 people among us died because there was no food and water. We performed prayers in the boat for them before we threw the bodies into the sea ...
Almost every day someone would die," he said. Indonesia argues the Rohingya migrants -- including an earlier group of 174 boat people found off Aceh on January 7 -- are economic migrants and should be sent back to Myanmar despite their fears of persecution. The Bengali-speaking Muslims are not given normal rights of citizenship in military-ruled, Buddhist Myanmar, leading to discrimination and abuse, according to rights groups. The United Nations refugee agency has sought access to the Rohingya being held in Indonesia but Jakarta has refused, insisting they are not refugees and do not deserve international protection.
Islamic leaders have criticised the government for failing to offer asylum to the Muslim migrants. "Indonesia should accommodate (the migrants) for an indefinite time and not send them back to their country, where they are oppressed by the government because of their Muslim faith," said Maskuri Abdillah, a spokesman for Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama. Amnesty International has demanded that Thailand "stop forcibly expelling Rohingyas" and urged regional governments to grant them fair asylum hearings.
|
