By Nathan Andrada

Bangkok, Thailand

Defying United Nations' calls to accept Myanmar's Rohingyas as Muslim minority amid sectarian bloodshed in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, Thailand Thursday sent dozens of Rohingyas back to their homeland.

Ditthaporn Sasasmit, a spokesman for the kingdom's Internal Security Operation Command, said a total of 73 Rohingyas, including 15 women, have been sent back days after they illegally landed on the southern island of Phuket.

"The waves were high and it might have been dangerous to go further, so Thailand allowed them to come into the country and detained them as illegal immigrants. Phuket immigration police sent them back overland via Ranong, where there is a border checkpoint," he said.

Nearly 180 people have been killed and thousands displaced since the clashes between Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine people erupted last June, prompting the U.N. refugee agency to open their borders for immigrants.

Responding to Thailand's move, New York-based Human Rights Watch has called on Bangkok to "scrap its inhumane policy of summarily deporting Rohingya, who have been brutally persecuted in Myanmar, and honor their right to seek asylum".

The group said that the fate of deported Rohingya is uncertain since people smugglers pick them and lure them to drop them to Malaysia in return of huge sums of money.

"Those unable to pay the smuggling fees are forced into labor to pay off the fees, condemning them to situations amounting to human trafficking," it said.

 

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