Key facts
- Malaysia repatriated nearly 1,500 Myanmar nationals on Tuesday, including 86 women.
- The UN and rights groups warned that returnees face risks of persecution and violence in Myanmar.
- The repatriation is part of a plan to send 5,000 Myanmar nationals back in stages.
- Malaysia's interior ministry stated that 95% of asylum-seekers in Malaysia are from Myanmar.
- The UN High Commissioner for Refugees urged Malaysia to stop the process immediately.
Malaysia began repatriating nearly 1,500 Myanmar nationals on Tuesday, including 86 women, despite warnings from the UN refugee agency and rights groups that conditions in their home country remain unsafe. The returnees, who had been convicted of immigration violations in Malaysia, were processed at the Lumut naval base before boarding buses.
The repatriation is part of a larger plan agreed upon with Myanmar's military regime to send as many as 5,000 people back to the country in stages. Malaysia's interior ministry stated that the repatriation was part of the government’s plan to resolve the “legacy issue” of foreign asylum-seekers in Malaysia – of which it said 95% were from Myanmar.
However, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Volker Turk, urged Malaysia to stop the process immediately, stating that nobody should be forcibly returned to Myanmar given the severity of the situation on the ground, where a civil war has raged since 2021. Rights groups have expressed concern that the returnees could face persecution, detention, or forced military conscription.
Malaysia, which shelters one of Southeast Asia’s biggest refugee populations, is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and does not formally recognise refugee status. UNHCR data indicates approximately 193,000 refugees from Myanmar are in Malaysia, with about two-thirds being Rohingya Muslims, who have historically faced persecution in Myanmar.