The Maritime Ping-Pong of Boat People
Analysis of Rohingya Refugee Crisis
CIA – I
REFUGEE LAW
ANJALI DWIVEDI
1216405
8-BBA-LLB-‘B’
ABSTRACT
Refugee as in accordance with Article1(a) of the United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees, is a person fleeing from one country to another because of a well founded fear of being persecuted on the basis of either caste, religion, political opinion or, social group. The refugee crisis today is evident throughout the world. Rohignya refugees form part of one such religious group, and are the most persecuted minority today.
In May 2015 scenes of desperate people stranded without food or water on captain-less boats off the coasts of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia brought global attention
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Myanmar is religiously diverse but not religiously pluralistic. The State has a dark legacy of oppression against all its ethnic minority people, including both the Rakhine and the Rohingya, but the Rohingya have been singled out for a particularly lethal form of torment. As a result, in Rakhine state, the relationship between Buddhists and Muslims has moved from mutual tolerance to open hostility – hostility primarily directed against Muslim Rohingya by Rakhine and Bamar (Burmese) …show more content…
However, conditions in the most of the country’s refugee camps are dire, driving many to risk a perilous voyage in the Bay of Bengal.
More than 137,000 refugees from Myanmar were registered in Malaysia as of September 2014, according the UN , including tens of thousands of Rohingya. The Global Emergency Overview, which tracks humanitarian crises, tallied more than 40,000 UN-registered Rohingya as of last December, but activists say there are roughly an equal number of unregistered Rohingya in the country. Kuala Lumpur has recently signaled a growing unease with the migrant influx. In May 2015, Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Jafaar said "We have treated [migrants] humanely but they cannot be flooding our shores like this."
The Rohingya have also begun to seek refuge in Indonesia , although the number of refugees there remains relatively modest, with an estimated two thousand Rohingya as of June 2015. Earlier in May, Indonesia's military chief expressed concerns that easing immigration restrictions would spark an influx of