Myanmar has imprisoned 112 Rohingya people, including 12 children, after they were caught attempting to flee the country.
According to local police and a report from the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar on Tuesday, the group was sentenced on January 6 by a court in Bogale, in the southern Ayeyarwady region of Myanmar.
The group was apprehended in December after being discovered on a motorboat “without any official documents,” according to the report.
Five of the 12 kids—all under the age of 13—were given two-year sentences, while the older kids received three-year sentences. According to the newspaper, they were moved to a “youth training school” on Monday.
The adults were all jailed for five years, it added.
The majority-Buddhist nation of Myanmar claims that the minority-Muslim Rohingya are “illegal migrants” from South Asia and denies them citizenship and other fundamental rights.
Many of those who are still in Myanmar are imprisoned in camps, where they are subject to strict movement restrictions that make it difficult for them to work, study, or receive medical care.
The Rohingya, who are referred to as the world’s most persecuted minority, continue to take dangerous sea voyages from the refugee camps in Bangladesh and Myanmar to Malaysia and Indonesia, Muslim-majority nations, in the hopes of finding better lives there.
At least 185 Rohingya landed in Indonesia’s northernmost province of Aceh late last month after their boat drifted at sea for weeks.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, there were six times as many Rohingya who made these journeys in 2018 as there were in 2021.
In the Aceh province of northern Indonesia, two boats carrying a total of more than 200 people arrived ashore last month.
Source: Aljazeera news
