41 men, believed to be Rohingya, arrested on Perlis beach

PETALING JAYA: A group of men, believed to be Rohingya, were found stranded on a beach in Simpang Empat, Perlis, on Monday (April 8) morning.

The Perlis Border Security Agency (Aksem), together with the police and Kangar People's Volunteer Corps (Rela), detained the 41 men at the Kampung Sungai Padang beach at about 11.30am.

Perlis Aksem commander DSP Syed Basri Bin Syed Ali said that the men did not have any travel documents or identification on them.

The case has been handed to the Perlis Immigration Department.

In March, a total of 34 Rohingya refugees, including nine children, some as young as seven, were found at the Sungai Belati beach in Sungai Baru.

In May 2015, over 1,000 people from Bangladesh and Myanmar were left stranded in the Bay of Bengal, after human trafficking syndicates abandoned them following the discovery of mass graves and detention camps for Rohingya and Bangladeshis in Thailand and Malaysia.

Malaysian police discovered 139 graves of human trafficking victims in 28 detention camps in the jungle of Perlis near the Thai border.

Considered to be stateless and often subjected to arbitrary violence and forced labour in Myanmar, the Rohingya are considered by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

As of January this year, there were 84,030 Rohingya refugees and asylum-seekers registered with the UNHCR in Malaysia, although unofficial estimates are considerably higher.