Photo Credits: The Straits Times Online
It was an ugly scene comparable to that of Cao Cao's nasty action in Red Cliff 2, where the Prime Minister casted off some of his 100 odd Typhoid-inflicted lifeless soldiers into the waters as a form of mental attack to weaken his enemy's morale before launching a surprise attack on them.
Today, this act was enacted out by the Thai navy, whose government is currently under fire by human rights groups, including the United Nations, for recently setting sail some 300 plus Burmese migrants after allegedly arresting them for a brief moment before sending them off to meet their makers on open barges quipped with two sacks of rice and four barrels of water.
The only differences were that the people on board these barges are well alive and that they are migrants of a deprived state in search of a better livelihood in foreign land.
It is not known for how long were these migrants held in captivity, though reports fueled by Bloomberg, ABC News and other major online news networks alike mentioned that these migrants were hauled to shore and brutally treated by Thai navy officials before being cast off, again.
To date, Thailand has reportedly detained more than a thousand Rohingyahian boat-refugees from Bangladesh and Myanmar during the past month.
At least 300 of these people were thought to be lost at sea while some 100 migrants were reportedly rescued on the Andaman Islands of India after drifting at sea for two weeks.
A total of 4 deaths was reported after a boat capsized.
Similarly, Indonesian authorities reportedly rescued a group of 193 boat-refugees - Burmese Rohingya and Bangladeshis -who landed on Sabang Island in Aceh province on January 7.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told reporters on Sunday (Jan 18, 09) of his meeting with human rights groups to discuss the alleged violations as more reports of ill-treatment of these migrants by their security forces began to emerge.
Hailing from repressed Myanmar, these group of Rohingyahs - a native muslim minority of Myanmar - were subjected to various forms of repression by the ruling Junta and denied citizenship rights in their country of origin.
Over the years, some fled their country to neighboring Bangladeshi but were later sent back, only to face more hardships.
For more reports and updates, please visit:-
1. http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-37510720090118?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0
2. http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_327734.html
3. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=a9Lzj3pOBOIg&refer=asia
4. http://www.mizzima.com/news/regional/1566-thailand-should-stop-pushing-refugees-back-to-sea-ri.html
Alex Dino
*Sources are listed as above from the following links.
No comments:
Post a Comment