Burmese asylum seekers die after 25 days stranded at sea

[Zaune]

The Guardian

Burmese asylum seekers rescued by Sri Lanka's navy last week said they floated at sea for 25 days and 97 people died of starvation after Thailand's navy intercepted them and forcibly removed their boat's engine. The Thai navy has denied the allegation.

Thirty-two men and a boy now held at an immigration detention centre near Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, were rescued last Saturday when their dilapidated wooden vessel began sinking while making a perilous journey to Malaysia.

All are Rohingya Muslims who face heavy discrimination in Burma, and say they do not want to return there.

The survivors were suffering from serious dehydration when they were rescued about 250 miles off Sri Lanka's east coast. The Sri Lankan navy said it was alerted to the sinking vessel by a fisherman.

"The journey was dangerous, but we had to do that ... as we fear for our lives, no jobs, and big fighting [in Burma]," one of the survivors, Shofiulla, said.

Sectarian violence in western Burma has killed hundreds of people and displaced 100,000 more since last June. The Rohingya speak a Bengali dialect and resemble Bangladeshis, with darker skin than most people in Burma, which is mostly Buddhist. They are widely regarded as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

The United Nations estimates the Rohingya population in Burma at 800,000, but the Burmese government does not recognise them as one of the country's 135 ethnic groups. Most are denied citizenship and have no passports, though many of their families have lived in the country for generations. Bangladesh also refuses to accept them as citizens.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees expressed concern on Friday over the rising number of deaths of Rohingya at sea and urged Burma's government to promote reconciliation in conflict-hit Rakhine state and ensure them basic living conditions and eventual access to citizenship.

While commending the Sri Lankan navy's quick response, UNHCR also said there were continuing reports of some countries in the region putting boat people back to sea. It asked countries to "keep their borders open to people in need of international protection ... (and) offer them temporary assistance and protection until durable solutions can be found."

Shofiulla, 24, said 130 people were on the boat when the journey to Malaysia began on 10 January. They had paid $465 each.

After 10 days' travel, he said the boat reached the Thai border and two boats from the Thai navy intercepted them. Shofiulla said the navy personnel took their engine.

"Then we (had) no food, no rations ... no water. We drank only sea water," he said, adding that the bodies of the 97 who died over the next 25 days were put into the sea.

Colonel Thanathip Sawangsaeng, a Thailand Defence Ministry spokesman, denied the allegations.

"This is absolutely not true. The Thai navy officers would not have done that," he said, adding that similar accusations have been made in the past, including claims that the Thai navy had abused refugees. "The Royal Thai Navy commander has previously made it clear that the Thai officers have treated the boat people according to humanitarian principles.

"There are two approaches in handling the Rohingya: giving them food and help before letting them carry on their sea journey or prosecute them for illegal entry. However, it's not possible that the Thai navy would have done what they were alleged of doing."

The Thai army said last month that it had suspended two senior officers pending an investigation into their alleged involvement in trafficking Rohingya people from Burma to other countries.

Shofiulla said he is a second-year student studying microbiology, but that his university was closed last July after the violence erupted. "We can't go back to our country ... our government kills Muslims ... we are afraid to go back. We want to go to a safe place," said Shofiulla, who appeared to be the only English-speaking person in the group.

He said they wanted to go to Malaysia to find jobs, following in the footsteps of others from his village. He said 25 people were now in the detention centre while eight others were still hospitalised.

Sri Lankan immigration and emigration controller Chulananda Perera said his department had informed Burma's embassy in Colombo and was seeking its cooperation in identifying the survivors to begin the process of sending them back, but has not received a response.

There was no immediate comment from the embassy.

Posted without comment, because words fail me.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The area is pretty damned lawless, and diesel engines do fetch real money, so I can believe it was actually pirates removing the only thing of value on the boat because kidnapped refugees would be more trouble than they were worth. I do not know why a real navy that has some comprehension of the world, rather than small-time pirates with fake uniforms, would remove the engine to let them drift when a typical patrol boat could run over a sampan with nary a dent and guarantee the evidence was gone.

[Irbis]

Why wouldn't pirates just force people overboard or kill them and take the boat too? In fact, given the two, pirates and Thai navy, I'd expect the navy men to have much larger problems killing refugees. I can see commander convincing his men to take engine and sell it, especially if he promises shares, but murder? Someone would talk.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Why would they? The engine is probably worth several times as much as the rest of the boat, especially if the boat is a leaky, broken down sampan full of refugees.

EDIT: The pirates, I mean. Why would the pirates take the boat when its only worth a fraction of the engine. Not, "Why would the Navy talk."

[Irbis]

Because boat is money, too, something much less problematic to sell for pirates than for navy men? If they actually embarked the boat to unscrew and remove engine, they must have been armed well enough simply stealing boat instead would have been an option. At least from my point of view, taking only part of money and not silencing witnesses points more at someone who would have both view killing and boat sale as problematic to say the least, than to group that already accepted violence and has a market for prizes.

[cosmicalstorm]

Sucks to be them. I'm always happy to have been born in the right place. By the way, when people post articles about immigrants I rarely see these discussions reflecting over the ocean of poor people who would prefer to move to richer territory. If they were actually turned back by official military I could understand that in a cold blooded way. Make it as hard as possible for people to immigrate or face a never ending torrent of poor immigrants. Here in Sweden we have a very forgiving attitude towards migrants and now we are accepting ten times as many immigrants as the average European nation.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Yes, cosmical. We are aware that enough genocide will solve everything, it has been drilled into us by this month's crop of idiots. Could you also show exactly how many immigrants Sweden has? Their 12.3% seems average to me, unless you happen to be one of the guys who say "official counts don't matter, they can't get everyone so the numbers I pull out of my arse must be correct".

[Broomstick]

Why wouldn't pirates just force people overboard or kill them and take the boat too?

If it's a really shitty boat (which is might be, given that it sank) it might not be worth the trouble. On top of that, just grabbing a relatively portable engine and running with it really is less effort than killing everyone aboard and having to take the stolen boat into port.

[Metahive]

Sucks to be them. I'm always happy to have been born in the right place. By the way, when people post articles about immigrants I rarely see these discussions reflecting over the ocean of poor people who would prefer to move to richer territory. If they were actually turned back by official military I could understand that in a cold blooded way. Make it as hard as possible for people to immigrate or face a never ending torrent of poor immigrants. Here in Sweden we have a very forgiving attitude towards migrants and now we are accepting ten times as many immigrants as the average European nation.

In case this isn't a massive failure at sarcasm, congrats to your awesome feat of having chosen the right country to be born in. Fuck those poor Untermenschen from Untermenschen countries who dare and try to improve their lot in life! They should know their place is to be forever at the feet of the great mighty Westerner, graciously throwing them a few breadcrumbs and cruise missiles once in a while for all their hard work in the Nike sweatshops.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I should point out that the process of shooting 130 people to death by a pirate gang of like 12 - 20, say, in a small craft, even one done up like a navy craft (and what better cover is there for pirates?) is basically absurdly risky: It could make the boat sink. Bullets riddle wood relatively easily, and there would be the constant risk of a group of these men simply overwhelming you. Intimidating them into submissiveness while not threatening their lives but removing the only thing of value on the boat is much easier.

The reason I don't believe it is because, a diesel motor would be a nice bonus for one person, but split around a corrupt patrol craft's crew? Come on; Thailand is wealthy enough that everyone would already have a motor scooter and a cellphone, and at that level of wealth a diesel engine isn't really worth execution for corruption, which the Thais will do. And if it were some effort to keep the refugees out, why, again, not just ram the Sampan a couple of times and report that they ran over a log while at speed?

Not even military personnel like spending a long time machine-gunning 130 helpless people crammed together. It made even the SS Einsatzgruppen in WW2 sick to do so, that's why death camps were invented. But why leave them alive? The sampan might well drift to the shore in Thailand anyway; it might well report what you're doing if anyone survives.

The area has been rife with piracy since the late 80s/early 90s and though they tamped down a lot on it in the last decade, the exceptional poverty of the fishing communities in western Sumatra and on Sri Lanka and in eastern India after the Boxing Day Tsunami provides plenty of people with motive and opportunity to go loot engines off refugee boats. The sad thing if I'm correct of course is that, thanks to the failure of reconstruction efforts in some places, the people stealing the engine are as probably desperate as the refugees.

[Eleas]

Yes, cosmical. We are aware that enough genocide will solve everything, it has been drilled into us by this month's crop of idiots. Could you also show exactly how many immigrants Sweden has? Their 12.3% seems average to me, unless you happen to be one of the guys who say "official counts don't matter, they can't get everyone so the numbers I pull out of my arse must be correct".

Cosmicalstorm was talking (well, lying) about rates at which immigrants are accepted, which is different... well, in principle, at least. I have seen no evidence to suggest the immigration office in Sweden being substantially more permissive than that of, say, Germany or the UK.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

And even if we accept that Sweden has greater acceptance rates for some reason, their immigrants as a percent of the population are just about normal in the EU. Double failure for the dude here.

[cosmicalstorm]

Per capita Sweden accepts more than ten times as many immigrants as our neighbours. The notion that Sweden accepts an unusually large amount of immigrants from the middle east and north africa is accepted by the people in favour of this policy as well as by those who oppose it. If memory serves me right only Germany and France accept as many immigrants every year in total in the northern EU area and those countries are about ten times larger in population.
I was wondering how the migrants should be dealt with? Do we welcome them or reject them? To me it seems like there is no "good" option considering the number of prospective migrants in the world

[Eleas]

Per capita Sweden accepts more than ten times as many immigrants as our neighbours. The notion that Sweden accepts an unusually large amount of immigrants from the middle east and north africa is accepted by the people in favour of this policy as well as by those who oppose it.

Amusing. Note that while Wikipedia is a poor source, it's still a source. If you want to pretend refutal, then by all means, start quoting something other than "well, it's generally accepted that..." as a source.

[Grumman]

Per capita Sweden accepts more than ten times as many immigrants as our neighbours. The notion that Sweden accepts an unusually large amount of immigrants from the middle east and north africa is accepted by the people in favour of this policy as well as by those who oppose it.

Amusing. Note that while Wikipedia is a poor source, it's still a source. If you want to pretend refutal, then by all means, start quoting something other than "well, it's generally accepted that..." as a source.

Er... your cite is talking about the net migration rate - the difference between entries and departures, not the entry rate itself.

[Eleas]

Er... your cite is talking about the net migration rate - the difference between entries and departures, not the entry rate itself.

Mea culpa. So I did, and from reading the Riksdag och Departement section on migration statistics, it does seem as if cosmicalstorm was broadly correct. I had a very differing view on the matter which I must now amend. I still feel the way he entered the thread was callous and privileged as all fuck, but although he cited no references, he was nonetheless right about the numbers.

[cosmicalstorm]

I'm very honest with my happyness to have been born in the right place and time. If I was born somewhere else I would do everything to create better circumstances for myself including immigration to a richer country. I do not advocate racist or nazi ideologies and I'm not in favour of genocide as somebody hinted.
I wonder what policy ought to be adapted with regard to immigrants?

To me it seems there is a powerful feedback-loop between generous entry rules and number of immigrants per year. I.e. the more generous, the more immigrants you get. Or maybe I'm wrong? This subject is often taboo it seems.

[Spoonist]

The reason why lots of nations gets higher scores is that usually one includes illegals as well.
There is also a huge difference between natural immigrants, refugee immigrants and economic immigrants. (Something normally missed in these discussions).
But since cosmicalstorm false claim was "Per capita Sweden accepts more than ten times as many immigrants as our neighbours." we can trim this down.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ ... 034-EN.PDF

Table 1: Foreign and foreign-born population by group of citizenship and country of birth, 2010
Total %, from EU %, nonEU %
Germany 12.0, 4.2, 7.8
Denmark 9.0, 2.8, 6.3
Finland 4.3, 1.5, 2.8
Sweden 14.3, 5.1, 9.2
Norway 10.8, 4.3, 6.5

So while Sweden leads the way, even if we compare them to the one which is the most restrictive of the nordic countries, Finland, then it would be about 3x not 10x.

What I think though is that cosmicalstorm is not refering to immigrants at all, but rather "not the same color" and he'd be getting those stats from Sverige Demokraterna.
Its that bullshit comment of "This subject is often taboo it seems.", this is a stock comment just like, "I'm not a racist, but..." which is followed/preceeded by bullshit.

So lets look at refugees
http://www.unhcr.org/4e9beaa19.html
Look at the appendix table 1, this is what he is talking about. Sweden is recieving lots of asylum applications. Per 1000 capita 2007-2011 that would be:
Denmark 3
Finland .6
Germany 1.9
Norway 11.7
Sweden 15.6
What this misses is of course how many of those were accepted etc. But it gives you the picture the racists want to paint.
It completely ignores Norway of course...


So in conclusion, what people who quote the 10x figure is worried about is not that Sweden is accepting a lot of immigrants. Because we are not relatively per capita nor per ppp. Instead its that Sweden accepts a lot of asylum seekers from the middle east and africa...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I think while Westerners huff and puff about this, most Asians will probably say "meh".

And that is the problem. Not even the "Muslim Brotherhood" can save these buggers. Bangladesh closed the border to them. If you guys want to help them, you guys will have to fork out the cash for them yourselves on your own soil. No one wants them here in Asia. Doubtless the Australian govt would really hope that they don't ever contemplate going their way. Doubtful they would even survive the trip anyhow.

[cosmicalstorm]

The reason why lots of nations gets higher scores is that usually one includes illegals as well.
There is also a huge difference between natural immigrants, refugee immigrants and economic immigrants. (Something normally missed in these discussions).
But since cosmicalstorm false claim was "Per capita Sweden accepts more than ten times as many immigrants as our neighbours." we can trim this down.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ ... 034-EN.PDF

Table 1: Foreign and foreign-born population by group of citizenship and country of birth, 2010
Total %, from EU %, nonEU %
Germany 12.0, 4.2, 7.8
Denmark 9.0, 2.8, 6.3
Finland 4.3, 1.5, 2.8
Sweden 14.3, 5.1, 9.2
Norway 10.8, 4.3, 6.5

So while Sweden leads the way, even if we compare them to the one which is the most restrictive of the nordic countries, Finland, then it would be about 3x not 10x.

What I think though is that cosmicalstorm is not refering to immigrants at all, but rather "not the same color" and he'd be getting those stats from Sverige Demokraterna.
Its that bullshit comment of "This subject is often taboo it seems.", this is a stock comment just like, "I'm not a racist, but..." which is followed/preceeded by bullshit.

So lets look at refugees
http://www.unhcr.org/4e9beaa19.html
Look at the appendix table 1, this is what he is talking about. Sweden is recieving lots of asylum applications. Per 1000 capita 2007-2011 that would be:
Denmark 3
Finland .6
Germany 1.9
Norway 11.7
Sweden 15.6
What this misses is of course how many of those were accepted etc. But it gives you the picture the racists want to paint.
It completely ignores Norway of course...


So in conclusion, what people who quote the 10x figure is worried about is not that Sweden is accepting a lot of immigrants. Because we are not relatively per capita nor per ppp. Instead its that Sweden accepts a lot of asylum seekers from the middle east and africa...

Those numbers seems more accurate and more in line with what I found when I went looking for this yesterday. I retract the "ten times the amount" claim.

[AniThyng]

I think while Westerners huff and puff about this, most Asians will probably say "meh".

And that is the problem. Not even the "Muslim Brotherhood" can save these buggers. Bangladesh closed the border to them. If you guys want to help them, you guys will have to fork out the cash for them yourselves on your own soil. No one wants them here in Asia. Doubtless the Australian govt would really hope that they don't ever contemplate going their way. Doubtful they would even survive the trip anyhow.

So much easier to just make a big hue and cry about Palestine where we don't actually need to do anything except send money and showcase convoys than about a situation in our own backyard where we might actually need to Do Something.

[Spoonist]

Please, could a mod split the Swedish/Nordic tangent?

...So in conclusion, what people who quote the 10x figure is worried about is not that Sweden is accepting a lot of immigrants. Because we are not relatively per capita nor per ppp. Instead its that Sweden accepts a lot of asylum seekers from the middle east and africa...

Those numbers seems more accurate and more in line with what I found when I went looking for this yesterday. I retract the "ten times the amount" claim.

So since you felt that you ordinarily are not allowed to talk about this, lets continue from there then.
My first question back to you would be; why do you think it is that your gut told you that the number was an order of magnitude larger than it really is? (Genuinly curious).

I wonder what policy ought to be adapted with regard to immigrants?

First to make any such dialog productive you need to make a distinction in regards to different immigrants. Otherwise you will just confuse the issue. Are you talking about natural immigration in the form of marriages and offspring of swedish nationals with non-swedish nationals? Are you talking about adoptions of non-swedish nationals? Are you talking about relatives migrating to family members? Are you talking about foreigners studying in Sweden and then staying once they graduate? (brain-gain) Are you talking about (the new law) specialists getting work permits and then extended to citizenship? Are you talking about work migration? Are you talking about temporary asylum seekers where the situation back home never got better? Are you talking about permanent asylum seekers?

To me it seems there is a powerful feedback-loop between generous entry rules and number of immigrants per year. I.e. the more generous, the more immigrants you get. Or maybe I'm wrong?

No you are quite right, but you have to adjust it with the caveat of applications versus approvals. Just because you have an increase in applications doesn't mean you have an increase in immigration. Some countries have a fixed rate on immigration that doesn't take into account the rate of applications.
The only reason why countries really far away from emigration sources gets a lot of immigration anyway is due to such feedback loops. Canada would be one of the prime examples. Another would be that before 911 the USA had a huge brain gain that was giving them the best people from around the globe due to the reputation and politics of their Universitites and in continuation its science research. That they managed to squander in less than a decade due to such a negative feedback loop.
Its also a case of specific regions emigrating to specific countries when in need. In such feedback loops where they will go where they have heard that people are accepted in. The emigration from Iran/Iraq being one of those examples.

This subject is often taboo it seems.

Immigration discussions isn't taboo, never has been. Not even when we had the rasbiologiska institutet, even then the dialog was out in the open. The only time that it was truly taboo was in the prelude to and during WWII, then it was censured for good reason. What you are confusing it with is when those discussing immigration mix in racism, that is when you enter taboo territory. Then the productive dialog dies and everyone has to concentrate on shooting down the false claims of the racists. This gives the impression of a difficult topic to talk about when it really isn't.
Sweden has relied heavily on immigration throughout its history to keep economic growth and/or competiveness. This since the days of the vikings onwards, only back then it was a bit more forceful... The only time we didn't was when it was the other way around and we had a huge emigration to the americas. Which was so devestating for Sweden that they did the big emigration study (emigrationsutredningen), at the turn of the last century which gave the start for the modern well fare state, in that it was seen as essentially necessary to match and surpass the social liberties and well fare provisions given by the USA to its people.
Since it has been so important this means that legislation or royal decrees to get those immigrants have been important as well. Look at the foundation of Gothenburg as a good example. Or the whole history of mining in Falun and Bergslagen. The economic boom post WWII was very much reliant on work immigration. etc
So it has never been a question of if, the only questions are how much and how should the assimilation process be handled to give the best effect possible. And those aren't taboo at all.

[Metahive]

This subject is often taboo it seems.

OK, let's make something clear. Flaunting your privileged position and whining that all those foreigners coming into your country ruin your day is not you bravely dashing against taboos. People who think this way are not exactly a persecuted minority and it sickens me every time they try to paint themselves as the victimized ones.

Kicking down on the totem pole is not an act of courage!

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I think while Westerners huff and puff about this, most Asians will probably say "meh".

And that is the problem. Not even the "Muslim Brotherhood" can save these buggers. Bangladesh closed the border to them. If you guys want to help them, you guys will have to fork out the cash for them yourselves on your own soil. No one wants them here in Asia. Doubtless the Australian govt would really hope that they don't ever contemplate going their way. Doubtful they would even survive the trip anyhow.

So much easier to just make a big hue and cry about Palestine where we don't actually need to do anything except send money and showcase convoys than about a situation in our own backyard where we might actually need to Do Something.

That's because there's plenty of anti-semitism to go around...

[Spoonist]

I think while Westerners huff and puff about this, most Asians will probably say "meh".
And that is the problem. Not even the "Muslim Brotherhood" can save these buggers. Bangladesh closed the border to them. If you guys want to help them, you guys will have to fork out the cash for them yourselves on your own soil. No one wants them here in Asia. Doubtless the Australian govt would really hope that they don't ever contemplate going their way. Doubtful they would even survive the trip anyhow.

So much easier to just make a big hue and cry about Palestine where we don't actually need to do anything except send money and showcase convoys than about a situation in our own backyard where we might actually need to Do Something.

That's because there's plenty of anti-semitism to go around...

WTF are you two on about? Are you really this stupid and/or callous?
Please try to motivate the reasoning behind these posts.