Malaysia’s coast guard will not turn away Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar and will provide them temporary shelter, Reuters quoted the maritime agency’s chief. The current exodus began after Rohingya militants allegedly attacked police posts in the restive Rakhine state on August 25.

Malaysia is likely to see more people arriving in boats from Myanmar in the coming weeks because of the violence, said Zulkifli Abu Bakar, director-general of the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency. “We are supposed to provide basic necessities for them to continue their journey and push them away,” Zulkifli told Reuters. “But at the end of the day, for humanitarian reasons, we will not be able to do that.”

Malaysia, a Muslim-majority nation already home to more than 1,00,000 Rohingya refugees, will probably house the new arrivals in immigration detention centres, he said. Malaysia, which has not signed the UN Refugee Convention, treats refugees as illegal migrants.

Thailand too said it was preparing to receive people fleeing the fighting in Myanmar.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak said the country will send a humanitarian mission to help refugees seeking shelter at the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. The mission will leave on Saturday to review the situation in refugee camps and Malaysia Airlines and Malindo Air will help distribute aid, a government statement said.

The mission is a “manifestation of Malaysia’s strong objection of the continued suppression of the Rohingya community by the Myanmar security forces,” Najib said in the statement.

There are 59,000 Rohingya refugees registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Malaysia although unofficial numbers are almost double.

The Rohingya crisis

The Rohingya have been denied citizenship in Myanmar and are classified as illegal immigrants, despite them claiming roots that go back centuries. The community has been subjected to violence by the Buddhist majority and the Army in Myanmar. The country’s de-facto leader and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticised for failing to stand up for more than 1 million stateless Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine.

Rohingyas in India

On September 5, Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju said the government had set up a task force in various states to identify and deport Rohingya refugees in India. He maintained that the Rohingyas were illegal immigrants who needed to be deported “as per the law”.

On August 18, India’s National Human Rights Commission had issued a notice to the Home Affairs Ministry over its decision to send them back to Myanmar. Around 40,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees live in India across Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan and Delhi.