Malaysia says Myanmar to take back 5,000 Rohingya refugees

AFP

Myanmar has agreed to take back 5,000 Rohingya from Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur said on Wednesday, in a rare repatriation push announced days after Malaysian authorities had detained dozens of refugees.

Malaysia hosts more than 215,000 refugees and asylum seekers registered with the UN refugee agency, including more than 126,000 members of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority, making them the country’s largest refugee community.

“People ask why we do not simply send them back. Send them where? Myanmar had refused to accept them before,” Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said during a visit to a town east of the capital, according to local media.

“Now, because of our good relations with Myanmar, they have agreed to take back 5,000 from Malaysia,” media outlets including the daily New Straits Times quoted Anwar as saying.

His remarks come days after Malaysian authorities detained more than 100 Rohingya refugees outside a UN refugee agency facility in Kuala Lumpur.

A Rohingya rights group in Malaysia said the group sought shelter after they were threatened with eviction from an informal settlement in northern Penang state.