(Rangoon) More than 110 Rohingya, including children, have been arrested by authorities in Myanmar as they attempted to cross into Malaysia, state media said on Friday.
A total of 112 “Bengalis”, including 12 children, traveling “without any official document” were arrested in the canton of Bogale, in the south-east of the country, according to the newspaper. Global New Light of Myanmar. “Bengali” is a pejorative term used in Burma to designate the Muslim minority.
According to local media, citing sources close to the police, the arrests took place on the morning of December 20.
A court later sentenced 35 of the group’s members, aged over 18, to five years in prison for traveling without documents, the report said. Global New Light of Myanmaradding that 13 minors would be detained in a “training centre” until their 20s.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, members of a community that immigrated to Burma several generations ago, have fled the Buddhist-majority country in recent years, where most of them do not have access to citizenship, nor health or education.
In 2017, the country’s military crackdown prompted hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, with harrowing accounts of murder, rape and arson.
Burma is facing charges of genocide before the highest court of the United Nations following this mass exodus.
On December 5, thirteen Rohingya were found dead on the side of a road near the town of Hlegu, near Yangon.
Myanmar police later arrested 12 suspected members of a smuggling organization accused of being linked to the deaths.
Malaysia, with a predominantly Muslim population, is a preferred destination for Rohingyas seeking to flee persecution.