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LUMUT, Malaysia: Malaysia deported more than 1,000 Myanmar citizens to their homeland a few weeks after a coup on Tuesday (February 23), the country’s immigration chief said, despite a court order halting repatriation and a storm of criticism from human rights groups.
Authorities sent 1,086 detainees back on three Myanmar navy ships from a military base on Malaysia’s west coast, Malaysian immigration chief Khairul Dzaimee Daud said.
“The immigration department wants to emphasize that no Rohingya immigrant or asylum seeker has been sent back,” it said in a statement. “All those who have been deported agreed to return of their own free will, without being forced.”
The statement did not mention a ruling by the Kuala Lumpur High Court hours before ordering the repatriation to be halted so that human rights groups could present a challenge arguing that the repatriation be halted.
Activists have raised concerns that asylum seekers are among those deported, while the United States and the United Nations have also criticized the plan.
