Day: March 25, 2024

Indonesian search-and-rescue officials said Monday they had recovered the bodies of 11 Rohingya refugees, mostly women, who were on a boat that capsized off the coast of Aceh province last week.

Some of the 75 Rohingya who were rescued had told officials that the wooden boat was carrying around 150 members of the stateless minority group from Myanmar, but an Indonesian official, who declared an end to the search operation on Thursday, later pushed back at reports that people had died.

On Friday, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said it feared that more than 70 refugees were dead or had gone missing from the boat that overturned in waters off West Aceh regency last Wednesday.

Of the 11 bodies recovered from the capsized boat, six were found relatively close to each other in waters off Jaya district in West Aceh, on Monday afternoon, said Mirza Safrinadi, an operations commander at the local Search and Rescue Task Force.

“The bodies were initially spotted by local fishermen and reported to authorities. Because the location was near Banda Aceh, the [search-and-rescue] team quickly responded to evacuate the victims,” he said.

The bodies were transported to Calang City and then transferred to Teuku Umar General Hospital in Aceh Jaya district.

One body was discovered by fishermen who were searching for turtle eggs at a beach in Arongan Lambalek District, West Aceh, on Monday morning, Mirza said.

“After discussions with UNHCR and IOM [International Organization for Migration], we can confirm that these individuals were Rohingya refugees who were victims of the capsized boat incident,” Mirza said.

The bodies were laid to rest in the mass cemetery in West Aceh for victims of the 2004 tsunami in Aceh, an official said. Two more bodies of Rohingya refugees, found on Saturday and Sunday, were also laid to rest in the same cemetery.

Of the 11 dead refugees, nine were women, said Faisal Rahman, a UNHCR protection associate.

Boat originated in Bangladesh

Of the 75 Rohingya rescued, six were saved on March 20, and 69 others, who had been clinging to their wooden boat for nearly a day and were suffering from hunger and dehydration, were brought ashore the next day. 

Supriadi, the captain of the search-and-rescue ship that saved 69 refugees, on Friday took issue with the UNHCR and IOM’s contention that 76 people may have perished or were missing at sea.

He said he didn’t believe this was the case because the 69 (of 75) refugees rescued Thursday “had clear coordinates provided by fishermen who witnessed the refugees in distress.” 

“If there are still victims, where are they located?” he had said.

Meanwhile, UNHCR’s Faisal said the agency was able to get more clarity on how many passengers were on the boat and where it had originated.

Faisal said that after collecting more data the agency concluded that there were 142 Rohingya refugees and seven crew members on the boat.

Additionally, he said the boat had not originated in Malaysia with Australia as the planned destination as they were originally told, he said.

The boat had left from Cox’s Bazar in southwestern Bangladesh, where the refugee camps host some 1 million Rohingya, including 740,000 who fled a brutal military crackdown  by the Myanmar military in 2017.

“Through our interviews with several refugees, we can confirm that they departed from Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh,” Faisal said.

“Initially, they were headed to Malaysia, where some of their family members already resided. Others had plans to reach Indonesia.”

This latest incident occurred amid the increasing arrival of Rohingya refugee boats in Indonesia. 

“In 2023 alone, more than 2,300 Rohingya refugees arrived [in Indonesia], with a significant increase from November onwards. This number exceeds the number of arrivals in the previous four years as a whole,” UNHCR and IOM said.

The Rohingya have been accommodated in locations across Aceh, according to the UNHCR.

UNHCR reported that 569 Rohingya refugees had died or gone missing at sea last year, as they made the perilous journey by sea to oppression in their home country or the crowded and violent refugee camps in southwestern Bangladesh to get to Southeast Asia.

Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta contributed to this report. BenarNews is an online news outlet affiliated with Radio Free Asia.

Chinese authorities have released hundreds of monks and other Tibetans arrested in February for peacefully protesting the construction of a dam in a Tibetan-populated area of Sichuan province, but are still holding two accused of being ringleaders, two sources inside Tibet said. 

Tenzin Sangpo, senior administrator of Wonto Monastery, and a village official named Tenzin, were arrested on Feb. 23 on suspicion of leading protests last month against the Gangtuo Dam project in Dege county, or Derge in Tibetan, in the province’s Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

The dam is expected to submerge six monasteries, including Wonto, and force the resettlement of at least two major communities along the Drichu River, or Jinsha River in Chinese. 

All told, more than 1,000 Tibetan monks and residents of Dege county were arrested for protesting. Several of those arrested, including Sangpo and Tenzin, were transferred from where they were previously detained to the larger Dege County Detention Center.

Sangpo and Tenzin have been handed over to the government Procuratorate Office, responsible for investigating and prosecuting serious criminal cases, said the sources who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals by authorities.

Since then, authorities have provided no details about their whereabouts or the charges against them, the sources said. 

“The local Tibetan people are worried that the government will accuse them of having instigated the February protests and being responsible for sharing information with the outside world,” said the first source, referring to Sangpo and Tenzin.

Another monk, who has assumed the responsibility of monastery administrator in place of Sangpo, was also briefly detained by authorities, the sources said. 

Beaten and given little food or water

One monk who was arrested, detained and released said authorities kept those arrested in crowded cells meant to hold fewer than eight people.

They also fed the detainees poor quality tsampa – ground-up, roasted barley flour that is a Himalayan staple – fit for horses, mules or other animals.

“Some days, we were not given any water to drink,” he said. “On other days, when there was water, we were given very little.”

Authorities also slapped the monks and made them run around the prison grounds as punishment for their crimes or beat them if they refused to run, the monk said.

“One monk was beaten so badly that he could not even speak,” he said. “He is now under medical treatment.”  

Tibetans who had been arrested were pressured to incriminate each other, causing psychological trauma, said the sources.

Since the protests and arrests in February, authorities have been closely monitoring villages and monasteries on both sides of the Drichu River, and no outsiders have been allowed to enter the township, sources said. 

They have set up five checkpoints between Wonto village and Dege county, with dozens of police at each, they said. 

Villages residents and monks from Wonto Monastery are not free to travel unless they have a permit to visit the county, the sources added. 

Before the protests, there were more than 50 younger monks at Wonto Monastery, but they were sent to the county government school after the protests.

Future of dam project uncertain

Chinese officials and media reports have given mixed and contradictory information about the future of the dam project.

The Gangtuo Dam is part of a plan that China’s National Development and Reform Commission announced in 2012 to build a massive 13-tier hydropower complex on the Drichu. The total planned capacity of the 13 hydropower stations is 13,920 megawatts. 

Some have said that its future is uncertain, with preliminary checks being conducted to determine whether it is possible to complete it, sources said. Their findings will be presented to the State Council, the national cabinet of China, for a final decision.

But others made clear that the Gangtuo Dam project would continue, with a visiting county official telling the leaders of the project coordination team to adhere to their work orders and make arrangements for “the next step of work,” according to a local Chinese government announcement. 

Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

The number of people infected with anthrax in southern Laos’ Champassak province has more than tripled over the course of a week to 54, according to authorities, who have warned the public to refrain from touching sick or dead livestock.

The Department of Communicable Disease Control, under the Lao Ministry of Health, announced on March 20 that the number of infections in Champassak soared from 14 cases a week earlier to 54 as a result of contact with dead cattle. 

No human deaths have been reported.

Anthrax is a disease caused by bacterial infection from spores commonly found in infectious animal products. Transmission can occur by breathing in the spores, eating contaminated meat, or bacterial contact through an area of broken skin. Symptoms include blisters, fever, chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea and abdominal pain.

The proliferation of vaccines means that anthrax infections are not typically fatal. Slightly more than 2,000 people die from the disease annually worldwide.

An official from Champassak province, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak with the media, told RFA Lao that the infections are being investigated by authorities, who are also raising awareness of the disease in Soukhuma and Champassak – the two affected districts.

“Our team from the provincial health department has traveled to the two infected districts … campaigned against the disease and explained to the public not to have any contact with sick animals,” he said.

He noted that last week, cows in Vientiane and Borikhamxay provinces had died of an unknown disease, and said tissue from the animals is being tested to determine the cause of death.

While the distribution of cases in the two Champassak districts was not immediately clear, a worker at the Soukhuma District Hospital told RFA that his facility has “a few patients who are infected with anthrax.”

Residents told RFA they are working with authorities to curb the spread of the disease.

“I know that anthrax is spreading,” said the owner of a restaurant. “Our restaurant is complying with the order of the authorities. We’re serving only fish, not meat.”

Nanthasane Vannavong, the deputy head of the Health Department of Champassak Province, urged the public to seek immediate diagnosis and treatment at a hospital or medical center if they suspect they may have been infected.

Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

Some 200 Myanmar migrant workers were fired from their garment factory jobs in China’s Yunnan province and forced to leave the country after they protested for better pay and working conditions, a labor union leader told Radio Free Asia.

More than 1,000 workers from two garment factories in Yunnan’s Yingjiang city demonstrated on March 17, according to Tin Tin Wai, the co-chairwoman of the New Light Federation of Labor Unions Myanmar. 

“We were threatened through interpreters with police arrest if we didn’t stop the protest,” said a worker who identified himself as Super. “The police officers looked like they were about to beat us, but they ended up not hitting any protesters.”

The next day, factory officials demanded that some of the protesters undergo a medical exam, Tin Tin Wai said. The 200 workers who were fired from the Shangcheng and Xinjiahao factories were told they had failed the exam, she said.

They were then immediately driven out of the factory gates to a police station, where they were told to sign a document that said they weren’t fired for protesting, according to one of the workers, Ma Jue.

“They didn’t allow us to take our belongings out of our rooms,” she told RFA. “We were forced to sign a paper that we were voluntarily returning home.”

The workers were then driven back to Myanmar’s Kayin state, Tin Tin Wai said.

No legal recourse

Protesters had demanded that their usual 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. working schedule be scaled back, that they be paid extra for overtime and that they receive a monthly salary of 1,500 yuan (US$208) with an attendance bonus, she said.

They also asked for reasonable output goals and to have Sundays off, she said. 

There are more than 1,000 Myanmar migrant workers at the Shangcheng factory and about 300 workers from Myanmar at the Xinjiahao factory.

Because there is no memorandum of understanding between the two governments, Myanmar migrant workers at Chinese garment factories don’t have legal recourse and can be sent home at any time, according to observers of Myanmar labor issues at the Chinese border. 

At the Shangcheng and Xinjiahao factories, employment agents who arranged for the workers to come from Myanmar never get involved or take any responsibility when there are disputes between the workers and factory owners, Tin Tin Wai said.

Super told RFA that some Myanmar workers were promised higher salaries than the ones they now receive. 

“The Chinese employers offered salaries of 900,000 to 1,000,000 kyats (US$425 to US$475), plus overall expenses for accommodation,” said the worker, who identified himself as Super. “However, the workers did not even get 800,000 kyats (US$380).”

Super said he watched some workers quit because they couldn’t handle all the overtime work and didn’t have access to painkillers or other medicine.

RFA contacted the Chinese Embassy in Yangon and the Myanmar Consulate in Yunnan about last week’s protest, but there was no response. 

Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

A return to a Coronavirus Emergency Quarantine posture is underway in North Korea’s Ryanggang province as cases of a respiratory disease with symptoms similar to COVID-19 increase, and at least one more child has died, residents told Radio Free Asia.

RFA previously reported that at least five children in the central northern province died after developing symptoms, causing the local government to shut down schools and daycares for 10 days. Sources said that the 10 days have passed and only high schools have reopened.

Closing the schools did not stop the spread of the disease, and now authorities are restarting the province’s Coronavirus Emergency Quarantine Command, a system which the country relied on to get through the “maximum emergency” that started in May 2022, which it declared victory over in August of that year.  

“These days, the authorities have reactivated the Coronavirus Emergency Quarantine Command,” a resident of the province told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The head of the neighborhood watch unit went from house to house and announced an inspection from the Coronavirus Emergency Quarantine Command.” 

As part of the emergency procedures, doctors are visiting each house to measure residents’ temperatures twice a day, providing care for those with high fevers, he said. 

Reports of deaths due to spreading disease are shocking to residents, causing anxiety, the resident said, referring to the case of a recently deceased 10-year-old elementary school student.

Some residents say the twice-daily temperature checks are an invasion of privacy, and believe that restarting the emergency is excessive and amounts to propaganda, because the government offers very little help to sick people, the source said.

‘Quarantine propaganda’

Another resident from the province, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said quarantine officials were active in the city of Hyesan since reactivating the emergency command, and they are carrying out what she termed as “quarantine propaganda.” 

“Wouldn’t it be more effective to treat infected patients by giving them antibiotics rather than reactivating the Emergency Quarantine Command?” she said.

Antibiotics are however useless against COVID-19, which is a viral, not bacterial illness, though respiratory illnesses like mycoplasma pneumonia can be caused by bacteria.

North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper published hygiene information related to that disease on March 11, warning that the disease can be severe in frail people and children, even leading to death.

But such information is useless, according to the first resident.

“In reality, infected patients have no choice but to treat themselves,” he said. “If they don’t have money, they have no choice but to die.” 

Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

Chinese fraud gangs in eastern Myanmar’s Kayin state are moving the foreign trafficking victims they use to run their operations away from a town on the Thai border to a casino in an ethnic rebel-controlled enclave amid rumors of a coming crackdown by authorities, according to casino workers.

Scam centers have plagued the border areas of Thailand, Myanmar and China as nationals from all three countries are tricked into – and subsequently enslaved in – online fraud.

The businesses typically force trafficked workers to call people across Asia and convince them to deposit money in fake or fraudulent investments.

Tens of thousands involved in the criminal schemes were deported from Myanmar in 2023 by both junta and rebel army officials. Many are linked to forced labor, human trafficking and money laundering, which proliferated after COVID-19 shut down casinos across Southeast Asia.

In January, following arrests and raids of money-laundering gangs in Shan state’s town of Laukkai along the border with China, rumors swirled of a possible crackdown by joint forces of Myanmar’s junta and Thai authorities on casinos along the Thai border.

Earlier this month, more than 800 Chinese nationals were deported from Myawaddy township’s infamous gambling and scam center, Shwe Kokko, in Myanmar’s Kayin state, in relation to online fraud.

Casino workers told RFA Burmese that Chinese fraud gangs are now moving the captive foreign workers who they rely on to run their operations from Shwe Koko to the Kyaukkhet Casino – known locally as the Ko Sai Casino – in a Democratic Karen Benevolent Army-controlled territory south of Myawaddy, locking them up, and demanding exorbitant ransom payments to release them.

“If you want to be released, if you want to go back home, they will threaten and demand 200,000-300,000 baht (US$5,500-8,250),” said one worker who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. 

“They have to work and pay it back – that’s the only way,” he said.

An investigation by RFA found that up to 3,000 foreign nationals are being held at the casino, including people from Thailand, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Ethiopia and Uganda.

Escapees tortured

Another casino worker told RFA that anyone who is captured while trying to escape the scamming gangs are subjected to savage beatings in front of their fellow captives.

“Last month, there were people who ran away but were caught,” he said. “It was too much for me to bear to see what they did to them. They tortured them with electric tasers and made them crawl upside down like scorpions. People even died from it.”

The casino worker said that most of the people who punished captives were “Chinese supervisors who also speak Burmese.”

RFA Lao was able to speak with one of the Lao trafficking victims in captivity at the casino, who urged authorities to “help us escape from the hellhole as soon as possible, because if we fail to earn money for our Chinese captors, we’ll be tortured again.”

The parent of a Lao victim held at the facility told RFA that their son had told them that he and others would be freed on March 3, but the day came and went with no news.

A representative of the Lao Embassy in Myanmar told RFA that junta officials “are working on the case” and called on anyone with information about the victims’ identities and locations to come forward.

Attempts by RFA to reach the owners of the Kyaukkhet Casino went unanswered.

No knowledge

Col. Saw Sein Win, a spokesman for the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, or DKBA, told RFA his group was unaware of the scam gangs operating in the casino.

Saw Sein Win said that while the Kyaukkhet Casino is in DKBA-controlled territory, its owners have to “pay fees to other armed groups around here, otherwise they will be in trouble.”

He said that the previously junta-allied Border Guard Force, the military, and the ethnic Karen National Union, or KNU – the largest rebel group in the area – all have ties to the casino.

According to Saw Sein Win, the DKBA also had no knowledge that people had been trafficked to and enslaved in the casino.

“We had several cases brought to us by foreign embassies of people who were human trafficked and sold there,” he said. “In those cases, we tried to verify the names and look for and rescue them. As far as I know, we only leased the land, so we are not that deeply involved in their [casino] operations.”

Saw Sein Win said the DKBA has never entered the casino or required anything of its owners, including the payment of taxes or any share of the revenue they earn. He said the casino owners are “doing their own thing with their own [security].”

“Although publicly these properties are in the DKBA area, as far as I know, [the Chinese casino owners] made deals with other groups,” he said. “If the junta’s army wants money, they go there. So do the other armed groups. All of them ask for money from the Chinese owners.”

While fighting between Myanmar’s military and the KNU’s armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army, has raged in the vicinity of Myawaddy on a near daily basis since February, residents say no clashes, airstrikes or raids have occurred in the area where the Kyaukkhet Casino is located.

Translated by Kyaw Min Htun. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.