Malaysia: UN agency urges safeguards after refugees returned to Myanmar

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has voiced concern over Malaysia’s decision to return 1,476 people to Myanmar amid an ongoing civil war and a dire human rights and humanitarian situation.Deportation of Rohingya refugees began on Tuesday, according to reports. “We are concerned by these returns at a time when people sent back to Myanmar may face serious risks, and some within the group may be in need of international protection,” saidUNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Edem Wosornu. No prior accessAlthough Malaysian authorities said the process was voluntary, she noted that those returned had been held in immigration detention. “This raises serious questions about whether decisions to return were genuinely free and informed,” she said. “UNHCR did not have access to the individuals to assess this.” The Rohingya are a mainly Muslim ethnic minority group in Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist nation where the military and various resistance groups are locked in civil war. Myanmar’s military, which seized power in a coup in 2021, has repeatedly targeted the Rohingya community, notably in 2017, when a widely condemned military operation in Rakhine state forced several hundred th...