KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim says Myanmar has agreed to take 5,000 Rohingya asylum seekers currently in Malaysia, where tension between the refugees and local communities is on the rise.
Speaking at a campaign rally on Wednesday ahead of regional elections in Negeri Sembilan state this weekend, Anwar said good relations with Myanmar had enabled the countries to negotiate on the issue.
“We have good relations with Myanmar. They have now agreed to take 5,000 Rohingya from Malaysia,” Anwar said, without elaborating further.
Muslim-majority Malaysia has long been seen as a safe haven for Rohingya fleeing persecution in the largely Buddhist Myanmar, with around 126,000 Rohingya registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Malaysia as of the end of February.
For decades, Rohingya have been denied citizenship in Myanmar, leading to them becoming the world’s largest stateless population, according to the United Nations.
It is not clear why any Rohingya would want to return to Myanmar given all the abuse they have encountered in the past. Myanmar’s presidential office did not immediately respond on Thursday to a request for comment on Anwar’s statement.
The UNHCR office in Kuala Lumpur did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday. On Wednesday, the agency issued a statement saying it was fully committed to working with Malaysia after the foreign minister called for a review of its operations unless it imposed stricter controls on issuing refugee documents.
Refugee tensions
Malaysian authorities this week detained more than 100 Rohingya Muslim refugees who had gathered outside the UNHCR office in Kuala Lumpur, releasing them later following a review of their documentation.
The refugees, who police said all possessed valid UNHCR documents, had sought assistance from the UN agency after claiming they had been evicted from their homes by residents in northern Penang state.
Rohingya refugees in Malaysia have been exposed to greater harassment and scrutiny, including the closure of community schools, in recent months after being targeted by online hate speech and misinformation.
Malaysia, which is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention and regards asylum seekers as illegal migrants, earlier this month asked the UNHCR to temporarily stop registering new refugees in the country as it builds a domestic system to manage asylum seekers.
In 2021, Malaysia deported more than 1,000 Myanmar nationals by ship, despite a court-ordered halt and rights groups saying the repatriation exercise had included asylum seekers and UNHCR-registered refugees.
