Myanmar News Articles: Dozens of Rohingya Asylum Seekers Escape Thai Detention Center

Rohingya Muslim illegal immigrants pray at the Immigration Detention Centre during Ramadan in Kanchanaburi

Rohingya Muslim illegal immigrants pray at an immigration detention center during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan in Kanchanaburi province, Thailand, on July 10, 2013. (Photo: Reuters / Athit Perawongmetha)

BANGKOK — A group of Muslim Rohingya asylum seekers in southern Thailand escaped from an immigration detention center on Tuesday, highlighting the growing desperation of a stateless minority fleeing sectarian violence in Burma.

Rights activists are critical of the Thai government's response to the influx of Rohingyas and have urged the authorities not to deport the refugees back to Burma, where they face pervasive discrimination.

The 87 escapees used blades to cut through iron bars and hacked at cement walls before disappearing into nearby rubber plantations, prompting a large search operation, said Suwit Chernsiri, police commander of the southern province of Songkla.

"The men were detained for many months and tensions were high," Suwit told Reuters. The jail break was the second after a group of 30 Rohingyas escaped from a Songkla police station earlier this month.

More than 1,800 Rohingya who fled Burma by sea this past year are being detained across Thailand, often in overcrowded centers and shelters, and thousands more have been intercepted and pushed back out to sea by the Thai authorities.

Burma, a majority Buddhist country, says the Rohingya are Muslim migrants from Bangladesh. A 1982 Citizenship Act excluded Rohingya Muslims from a list of 135 designated ethnic groups, effectively rendering them stateless.

Thailand also denies Rohingyas citizenship and considers them illegal migrants. Bangladesh also does not recognize them.

Many Rohingya hope to end up in neighboring Muslim-majority Malaysia, where some have extended families but often fall prey to smugglers and traffickers in Thailand.

A Reuters investigation found that Rohingyas who fail to pay for their passage are handed over to traffickers, who sell some men into slavery on Thai fishing boats or force them to work as farmhands. Thailand's navy denies its personnel are involved in smuggling and trafficking networks.

The number of Rohingyas boarding boats from Burma and neighboring Bangladesh reached 34,626 people from June 2012 to May of this year—more than four times the previous year, says the Arakan Project, an advocacy group that has studied Rohingya migration since 2006. Many have ended up in Thailand.