Malaysian govt cites COVID-19 to raid buildings to detain migrant workers

According to reports, 586 people, including young children, were arrested after the raid.
Migrant workers in Malaysia
Migrant workers in Malaysia
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Hundreds of migrant workers were rounded up and detained in Malaysia on May Day, a move the government said was to reduce the spread of COVID-19. These migrants were reportedly undocumented. Malaysia does not recognise refugees. 

Three buildings were raided in the capital Kuala Lumpur by the police, civil defence and immigration forces. Rohingyas have reportedly been blamed by Malaysian politicians for committing crimes, and for dominating areas in Kuala Lumpur. 

According to Reuters, authorities said that 586 people, including young children, were arrested after the raid. Police officers who were armed made people walk through the city in a single file from the location to a detention centre, reports said.

Malaysia has 6,298 cases of COVID-19, and a little over 100 deaths. The pandemic has increased xenophobia against Rohingyas living in Malaysia, with the government pushing back boats with hundreds trying to reach the country's shores, a report said on Friday.

Around 1,00,000 Rohingya refugees live in Malaysia, according to Efe news.

Lilianne Fan, director of the NGO Yayasan Geutanyoe (Geutanyoe Foundation), which is dedicated to working with refugees, told Efe News that one of the factors that led to the uptick in xenophobia against the Rohingyas was "insecurity about COVID-19”. The pandemic has caused the closure of borders and strong containment measures which have also caused the majority of Rohingyas to lose their jobs. The country is currently on partial lockdown, which is set to end on Monday. 

Migrant Rights NGO Our Journey’s director Sumitha Shaanthinni Kishna told South China Morning Post that people wouldn’t come out for testing. 

“If the government reflects on why the migrants are undocumented or became undocumented, they will see that the reasons circle back to the government’s poor implementation of recruitment policies and their poor enforcement against recruitment agents and employers who exploit these workers. Why aren’t they arresting employers?” she said. 

The UN said In a statement: “The fear of arrest and detention may push these vulnerable population groups further into hiding and prevent them from seeking treatment, with negative consequences for their own health and creating further risks to the spreading of COVID-19 to others.”

Malaysia has for years been one of the preferred destinations for Rohingyas fleeing the oppression they suffer in their country of origin, Myanmar. In Muslim-majority Malaysia, the Rohingyas have found a safe haven, compared to their home country, and can find work in sectors such as construction, but their position is extremely precarious as most are not officially recognized as refugees and have to live as illegal immigrants in a society that often views them with suspicion, the Efe news report said.

The recent hate campaigns against refugees began after the Malaysian Navy on April 16 intercepted a boat with about 200 Rohingya approaching its coast and, claiming that "undocumented immigrants" could bring COVID-19; they pushed it back out to sea where it is still stranded.

That same day, another boat arrived in Bangladesh with 396 severely malnourished Rohingya after two months at sea, during which around 100 people may have died, according to Doctors Without Borders.

According to UN figures, between 2012 and May 2015, some 1,70,000 Rohingyas from Rakhine state put themselves in the hands of human smuggling networks to flee to Malaysia or Thailand, but the authorities of those countries managed to dismantle these networks in mid-2015, so the use of these routes was reduced to a minimum.

With IANS inputs

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