APRIL 18 — Malaysia’s government is risking lives by pushing back overloaded boats of Rohingya refugees, Human Rights Watch said today. The government can appropriately respond to the Covid-19 pandemic without blocking life-saving rescues of seaborne asylum seekers. Malaysia has recently pushed...
Saturday, 18 Apr 2020 02:33 PM MYT
The fate of that boat is unknown. The previous day, Bangladesh coast guard officials intercepted another boatload of refugees that, survivors said, had been turned away from Malaysian waters almost two months earlier. A total of 382 starving Rohingya refugees were taken off the boat and survivors reported that at least 30 people on board had died before the rescue.
Under international law, public health measures must be proportionate, non-discriminatory, and based on available scientific evidence. Subjecting those who arrive to a period of isolation or quarantine may be reasonable. But the pandemic does not justify a blanket policy of turning away boats in distress, risking the right to life of those on board.
People arriving by sea, whether quarantined or not, should be placed in facilities that can guarantee social distancing, appropriate health monitoring, and access to health care. Because of the high risk of transmission of the virus in detention facilities, the authorities should use alternatives to detention as much as possible.
The estimated 600,000 Rohingya who remain in Rakhine State in Myanmar are subject to government persecution and violence, confined to camps and villages without freedom of movement, and cut off from access to adequate food, health care, education, and livelihoods.
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