Thailand investigates asylum seeker deaths

Updated January 23, 2009 13:15:08

Thailand's government is fighting off accusations that its military might have caused the deaths of hundreds of boat people from Burma and Bangladesh. In the past month, about a thousand people are believed to have passed through Thai waters and possibly mistreated by the Thai military. Thailand's new government is investigating but it's also vowing to get tough with human smugglers.

Presenter: Karen Percy
Speaker: Kitty McKinsey, UN High Commission for Refugees

KAREN PERCY: For the desperately poor people of Asia, the oceans have become a means to an end. They board boats, paying upwards of $500 in the hopes of a new life at the end of the journey. The trip can be treacherous and many will never make it.

Kitty McKinsey is with the UN High Commission for Refugees in Bangkok.

KITTY MCKINSEY: For the last three years the Rohingya from Myanmar and occasionally some Bangladeshis also have been setting out on very perilous journeys from near Cox's Bazaar and sometimes from Myanmar itself, in very small boats. And they're trying to get to Malaysia to work there. And it's a very dangerous journey across open seas and sometimes they end up in Thailand by mistake simply because of the wind or the sea current.

KAREN PERCY: Disturbing reports have come to light in the past few weeks, indicating that Thailand's military might be adding to the problem.

The UNHCR's Kitty McKinsey again:

KITTY MCKINSEY: They can keep boats from landing, but what they're accused of doing is actually taking the people and putting them on islands and keeping them for a few days and then putting them on other boats and towing them out to sea and leaving them with no engines and no food. And there's only one outcome to that scenario.

KAREN PERCY: The Rohingya are a mostly Muslim minority from western Burma who have been denied Burmese citizenship.

Some Thais fear that the Rohingyas are seeking to join armed Muslim insurgent groups in Thailand's south.

As many as 1000 people are believed to have come through the Andaman Sea off Thailand's west coast since December. More than half of them are still unaccounted for.

Some are said to have been dropped off at Koh Sai Daeng, a largely deserted island in the region. If they were sent there, they're nowhere to be found now.

The new Thai Government has ordered an investigation but is maintaining it needs to secure its borders.