Myanmar jails 112 Rohingya for entering country without legal documents

ANKARA (AA) – The Myanmar junta government imprisoned 112 Rohingya, including children, for entering the country without any legal documents, local media reported on Tuesday.

A local court in the Bogale township in the southern Ayeyarwady region sentenced 112 persons, including 12 children and 47 women, on Jan. 6, the daily Global New Light of Myanmar reported.

The local authorities claimed that they arrested Rohingya people on Dec. 20 near Kadonlay island in Bogale township as they entered by motorboats without any legal documents.

The court sentenced five children under the age of 13 to two years in prison, and seven others of above 13 years to three years while 53 men and 47 women were sentenced to five years in prison each, the daily said.

The court ordered sending the children to the Hnget-Aw-San Youth Training School in Kawhmu township of Yangon region.

Over 1.2 million Rohingya are currently hosted by Bangladesh in 33 cramped camps in the southern border district of Cox’s Bazar, as most of them fled a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.

Last month, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said that at least 180 ethnic Rohingya who had left Bangladesh by boat in November may have died after being stranded for about a month in an unseaworthy vessel with no food or water.

However, later the UNHCR said that 232 Rohingya people safely reached ashore in northwestern Indonesia after they took a risky sea journey to flee Bangladesh’s cramped refugee camps weeks ago.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid