More than 500 Burmese Rohingya and Bangladeshi were missing after Thai Navy pushed them onto the high sea since December, a Rohingya-dedicated group said Monday.
The Navy was accused of pushing as many as 992 boat people back to the sea between December 18 and 30 after capturing them days earlier from Thai territorial water in Andaman Sea.
The Navy denied of inhuman action and the government promised to investigate the case.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva met on Monday with Thai human right defenders who submitted the appeals and urged the authorities to stop pushing them back and find other ways to deal with them.
Vast majority of the group are stateless Rohingya from Burma's Arakan state and might have left Burma or Bangladesh by boats to seek better life in Muslim pre-dominantly Malaysia.
According to Araka Project coordinator Chris Lewa, the first group of 412 people arrived in five separated boats around December 18 and were forced to get on a large open-deck boat without engine and abandoned at high sea.
Indian Coast Guard rescued 107 of them in Little Andaman on December 27. More than 300 had earlier jumped ito the sea when spotting a lighthouse and were believed to have drown.
Lewa said another group of 580, arrested around December 30, was put into four boats without engines were removed, then towed together and abandoned at high sea
Of this group, one boat with 193 onboard was rescued in Indonesia's Sabang Island in Aceh on 7 January and an another one boat with 150 onboard was rescued in Tillanchang Island, Andaman & Nicobar of India on 10 January. Two boats with a total of 237 are reportedly missing.
"So there remained some 500 people missing and might have died," said Araka Project coordinator Chris Lewa.
There was an unverified report that a Thai fishing boat rescued 81 people on a no-engine boat and returned them to military at Koh Sai Daeng (Red Sand Island).
Source: The Nation
