The Japan Times - Myanmar says 10,000 migrants returned from Malaysia this year

The United Nations (UN) has sharply criticised Malaysia's push to return migrants to Myanmar under an opaque scheme it says cannot guarantee safe homecomings to the war-torn nation.

A group of 1,476 returnees arrived by ship outside Yangon on Sunday, the first of 5,000 that Kuala Lumpur says Myanmar agreed to take back amid a wave of anti-migrant sentiment in Malaysia.

Rights monitors have raised concerns that members of the Rohingya minority may be sent back to Myanmar, where they have faced violent persecution, but Malaysia has not commented on the ethnicities of returnees.

Myanmar revealed on Monday that a parallel and larger repatriation push has also been taking place by plane.

Between January and August this year, "8,041 citizens were repatriated by air", state newspaper The Global New Light of Myanmar said.

While the ship returns have been highly publicised in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur has not commented on the returns Myanmar says it organised by weekly flights.

The total number of migrants Myanmar has said returned by plane and ship this year is 9,517.

Malaysia insists returnees under its scheme agreed to voluntary repatriation from detention centres, where Myanmar says they had "faced difficulties" after serving sentences for immigration offences.

But rights groups report dire conditions in the facilities, and the UN refugee agency says staff were not allowed to verify that decisions to return were "were genuinely free and informed".

More than 100,000 people are estimated to have been killed in Myanmar since a military coup in 2021 unleashed civil war, according to monitor organisation ACLED.

The Rohingya started fleeing the country en masse to Malaysia before that, escaping a military crackdown starting in 2017 deemed a genocide by rights groups -- a charge the armed forces have always denied.

The Rohingya make up two-thirds of the 190,000 Myanmar refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia, according to UN data, and have been the focus of recent anti-migrant sentiment.

After the ships carrying the 1,476 migrants docked Sunday in Thanlyin, just south of Yangon, AFP journalists saw dozens moved to a monastery holding centre for ID and health checks.

"Necessary arrangements are continuing to facilitate their swift reunion with relatives and family members, ensuring their safe return to their respective hometowns," The Global New Light of Myanmar said.

K.Yamaguchi--JT