Malaysian authorities have turned away two boats carrying nearly 300 migrants believed to be Rohingya who entered waters near the Langkawi Islands in northwestern Malaysia, officials said on Saturday (January 4).
The boats were spotted two nautical miles southwest of the archipelago on Friday (January 3) night, the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said.
“They were provided with assistance, including food and water, to enable them to continue their journey before being turned away outside Malaysian waters,” MMEA director-general Mohd Rosli Abdullah said in a statement. Malaysia said it was coordinating with Thai authorities to monitor the movements of the boats carrying the migrants.
The two more boats were turned away after another boat carrying suspected Rohingya from Myanmar docked in Langkawi on Friday, where 196 undocumented migrants were arrested. The first group of migrants included 68 men, 57 women and 71 children, according to reports from Malaysia.
The Rohingya, who the UN considers to be facing persecution in Myanmar, have made the perilous journey to seek refuge in neighboring countries in the past.
According to figures released by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in early 2024, nearly 4,500 Rohingya fled by boat in 2023, with around 569 of them dead or missing en route, the highest number of fatalities since 2014.
Rohingya refugees often travel by boat to Muslim-majority Malaysia, but Malaysia does not officially recognize the refugees and those caught are held in detention centers.
According to Mohd Rosli Abdullah, director-general of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), a total of 2,089 undocumented migrants from Myanmar were intercepted by the MMEA and other Malaysian authorities between 2010 and 2024, in 18 boats. As of late November 2024, there were around 111,410 asylum seekers, including Rohingya refugees, in Malaysia, accounting for 58 percent of the total number of refugees in Malaysia.
According to the latest figures released by the United Nations on January 3, more than 3.5 million people, or 6 percent of the total population, have been displaced by the armed conflict in Myanmar, an increase of 1.5 million since 2023. The UN has warned that the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar could worsen.
