By C. Khor
PUTRAJAYA, Aug 9: More than 4,000 Myanmar nationals held at Immigration depots will be screened to determine whether they have refugee status or are undocumented migrants who have committed immigration offences.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the Immigration Department and police had been instructed to begin collecting data on the Myanmar nationals, and the process was already underway.
He said the government had yet to establish that the more than 4,000 Myanmar nationals were refugees.
“To know whether they are refugees or illegal migrants (PATI) who have committed offences under the Immigration Act and other laws, we have to screen them,” he said at a media conference after the flag-off ceremony for the Star City FC convoy on Saturday.
Saifuddin said Myanmar had agreed in principle to accept 5,000 of its nationals in Malaysia who were confirmed to have refugee status.
He said any repatriation would be handled by Wisma Putra once the screening process was completed.
“If it is confirmed that they have refugee status, then we will arrange for their repatriation. That will be handled by Wisma Putra. I cannot speak on behalf of Wisma Putra,” he said.
Saifuddin said some Myanmar nationals were outside Immigration depots, so the data collection would not be limited to those already detained.
He said the government would need a mechanism to reach them and inform them about the exercise before asking them to come forward.
“Our role is to carry out the data collection,” he said.
The first set of data is expected in the fourth quarter of this year, after which Saifuddin said he would share the figures with the media.
He also urged the media and public not to treat Myanmar’s refugee population as solely a Rohingya issue, saying refugees from Myanmar in Malaysia came from 19 ethnic groups.
“Rohingya (refugees) are one of them,” he said, naming Chin and Arakanese among the other groups.
He said refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Jordan were also in Malaysia and warned that focusing only on Rohingya could give the impression that Malaysia was dealing with only one refugee problem.
On July 23, the government ordered a temporary halt to new refugee registrations by UNHCR as Malaysia moved towards a government-run Refugee Registration Document system.
Six days later, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim announced that Myanmar had agreed to take back 5,000 Rohingya refugees from Malaysia.
The government has since stressed that any return must be safe, with Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil saying Malaysia would not proceed with the repatriation if those being returned faced threats to their lives or persecution.
Saifuddin said Myanmar’s agreement to accept its nationals from Malaysia followed its agreement to receive 100,000 refugees from Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.
He said Cox’s Bazar currently had about 1.2 million refugees and that the United Nations had reduced its funding, while Bangladesh was also facing pressure from the large population and about 35,000 new births each year.
Saifuddin said opportunities for refugees to be resettled in third countries had become increasingly limited, adding pressure on countries hosting refugee populations.
WE