KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia will not send 5,000 refugees back to Myanmar if authorities conclude their lives would be at risk, a government spokesman said Wednesday (Aug 5), while preparations continued for the potential repatriation.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced last week that Myanmar had agreed to take back 5,000 members of the persecuted Rohingya minority, in a rare repatriation push that has prompted concern from rights groups.
Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil, without specifying the refugees’ ethnicity, told a news briefing that “Malaysia, as a responsible country, will not send them back if they would either be persecuted or their lives would be threatened”.
“The junta government in Myanmar is ready to receive them, but we will examine what the criteria are. And if appropriate, we will implement” the repatriation plan, he said.
“We cannot send them back if their lives are threatened. So there are several matters that are being looked into by the foreign ministry.”
Myanmar authorities have made no public comment on the plan.
Malaysia hosts more than 215,000 refugees and asylum seekers registered with the UN refugee agency, including more than 126,000 Rohingya from Myanmar, the country’s largest refugee community.
The repatriation plan was announced after Malaysian authorities last week detained more than 100 Rohingya who had gathered outside the UN refugee agency’s office in Kuala Lumpur.
The refugees were being threatened with eviction from an informal settlement in northern Penang state.
They were later released after officials confirmed they held valid UN documentation.