Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison
Mon, January 6, 2014
PHUKET: A young boy who arrived
in Thailand on a Rohingya boat on Christmas Day with 138 others is to have an
operation this week to fix a genital hernia, Phuketwan has learned.
The boy
and his family soon after they arrived in Thailand from Burma
Photo by phuketwan.com
According to reports, the Rohingya, stateless and persecuted
inside Burma, are also refused access to hospitals.
Thirteen women and children from the Christmas Day boat are now
being accommodated in a family shelter in Khao Lak, north of Phuket. It's
thought that the menfolk associated with the families are also being held
somewhere in Phang Nga province.
Local Immigration officials decline to say what has happened to
the menfolk or to the other Rohingya who arrived on the boat. It's thought
that, with the exception of the families, the other men and boys have probably
already been ''deported'' through the Thai-Burma port of Ranong.
As Burmese authorities do not accept back Rohingya who flee the
country, ''deported'' usually means they have been put back on a boat at sea,
and probably transferred into the arms of traffickers.
After extensive health checks, the women and children arrived at
the Phang Nga family shelter on January 1 and later that day a person thought
to be a trafficker came to visit, returning at dusk.
Staff at the shelter intervened to prevent the person driving off
with the women and children.
It's not known how long the women and children will be detained at
the shelter. The group joins 13 other Rohingya women and children, the remnants
of more than 70 apprehended early last year. The others have all escaped with
the help of traffickers.
Details have emerged about how a pickup loaded with Rohingya came
to be in Sadao, close to Thailand's southern border with Malaysia, where it
overturned, killing one man and seriously injuring others, on Thursday.
Survivors have said they were among a group of 196 Rohingya who
came ashore in Ranong last Wednesday.
The boatpeople were all hidden in pickups under tarpaulins then
driven south towards the border, according to survivors.
When paramedics reached the scene of Thursday's crash they found
only eight injured and one dead man. At that stage the driver had vanished,
along with the remaining healthy occupants and the pickup's number-plates.
One of the injured remains critical in intensive care while four
are still in serious condition. The youngest is 15.
The Superintendent of Khlong Nae Police Station, Colonel Worachat
Rosjan, confirmed the crash and said the injured had been recorded as ''Burmese
Muslims.''
It is thought that the pickup was probably on its way to one of
several secret camps set up by traffickers in the jungle to hold hundreds of
Rohingya while their sale is negotiated to family and friends across the border
in Malaysia.
Source: Phuket Wan
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