Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison 

Phuket Wan

March 6, 2013

The killings, which are said to have occurred on February 21, came during a botched attempt by the military to transfer about 20 would-be refugees from the large boat on which they arrived from Burma (Myanmar) with 110 others, to a much smaller vessel. 

When some feared they would be separated from family members, they jumped in the water and the military men opened fire during the predawn incident, the witnesses said.

Survivors Habumara, 20, Rerfik, 25, and Jamar, 16, said yesterday that they swam for their lives when the shooting broke out. They are currently being sheltered by sympathetic villagers.

Two fresh graves, said to contain Rohingya, were seen by a Phuketwan reporter and an Australian news television crew yesterday.

The three survivors said they believed that the killers were members of the Thai Navy, but village residents said they probably belonged to another branch of the Thai military. 

Previous abuses of the Muslim Rohingya have been carried out by other arms of the Thai military or operatives trained as paramilitaries.

Vice Admiral Tharathorn Khajitsuwan, the Commander of Thai Navy Three, which patrols the Andaman coast, declined to comment.

One Rohingya, Rerfik, said that their boat, which had run out of fuel on its journey from Burma, was intercepted by local Thai fishermen on February 21.

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Chutima Sidasathian & Alan Morison 

Phuket Wan

January 17, 2013 

PHUKET: A group of 88 Rohingya boatpeople were apprehended and brought to shore north of Phuket yesterday under the gaze of the international media, the BBC and Aljazeera. 

The boatpeople, including eight children and 10 women, will be assessed as Thailand reviews its policy towards hundreds of Rohingya still arriving by sea or recently ''rescued'' from people traffickers' secret camps. 

One pregnant woman and her husband were sent to a small local hospital after the boat was spotted by local villagers off Pra Thong Island, near the large fishing township of Kuraburi in Phang Nga province.

The others in the boat were transferred to Kuraburi Police Station where the BBC, Aljazeera and Phuketwan photographed and interviewed them. 

What emerged was a saga of enduring persecution by the Burmese Army. These people are all neighbors from the village of Debeng, near the town of Sittwe, where so-called ''community violence'' has targetted the oppressed and stateless Muslim minority. 

Burmese soldiers and local police held the Rohingya of Debeng powerless at gunpoint while their Buddhist neighbors torched their homes, the newly-arrived boatpeople said today. 

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UPDATE

PHUKET: Hundreds more captive Rohingya were freed from traffickers in a fresh raid by authorities early today as an international rights organisation called on the Thai government to permit UN access to the rescued people.

Human Rights Watch spokesperson Phil Robertson said: ''We are concerned that Thailand will quickly move to deport these groups without consideration for their rights.''

Unprecedented raids by Thai authorities on two large secret camps close to the border with Malaysia have ''rescued'' about 700 Rohingya, with many women and children among them. 

But the whereabouts of the group freed yesterday from a hillside camp and the second group released in a raid on a warehouse in Songkhla province today are not known. 

After yesterday's raid, the first group of between 367 and 397 were housed at Songkhla Immigration and police stations around the township of Padang Bezar.

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Phuket Wan

January 10, 2013

January 10, 2013

Alan Morison & Chutima Sidasathian

Phuket Wan

January 1, 2013

PHUKET: A boatload of Rohingya - including women and children as young as three - was intercepted off the holiday island of Phuket in Thailand today.

The leader of the group of 74 told Phuketwan through an interpreter: ''Our families put to sea because there is no hope in Burma. If we stay, we will die.''

Previously, only men and boys among the persecuted Muslim minority put to sea. The family homes of thousands of Rohingya have been torched so the women and children now are also making the perilous voyages south in open boats. 

Organisations connected with the Rohingya expect more than 20,000 will put to sea and voyage past Phuket this ''sailing season'' between October and April.

It was disturbing to see young children among the passengers in the exposed open boat today. Hands reached out eagerly for food and cigarettes.

Phuketwan rented a tourist speedboat and was able to interview the group of 74 alongside their boat as Royal Thai Navy ratings replenished their fuel and supplies. 

Under Thailand's ''help on'' policy, the group will be told they cannot land but have been given assistance to reach their preferred destination, Malaysia. 

Mohamad, 45, told us: ''We were heading south with a much larger boat but we ran out of fuel so we had to stop here.''

The larger boat is believed to be the vessel that recently dropped about 500 passengers off the holiday island of Langkawi in Malaysia, with one man dying when struck by a propeller.

Off the southern Phuket holiday island destination of Rawai this morning, we reached the Rohingya boat in about five minutes. 

Rawai is a popular setting off point for tourist visitors who would have been exploring reefs and other island beaches today without realising the epic human drama of the boatpeople was just metres away. 

Of the 74 people crowded into the open boat, said Mohamad, 10 were children under the age of 10. There were three three-year-olds, two boys and a girl. 

Forteen women on board looked to Phuketwan to be mostly young teenagers.

The children keenly chewed on snacks given to them by local Chalong police and some of the men enjoyed cigarettes. 

The hold below the open deck is also packed with people. Mohamad said they had been sailing for 13 days, departing from Maungtaw, in Rakhine state, where so-called ''community violence'' has caused death and destruction since June. 

Mohamad said the fee asked by the people smuggler was 400,000 kyat per person.

Phuketwan has been covering the Rohingya saga since 2008 but this is the first time we've been able to intercept a group at sea. 

Other boatloads have landed on Phuket and along the Andaman coast from time to time. 

Usually they are described as ''Burmese'' - although the Rohingya are denied citizenship in Burma - and trucked straight back to the Thai-Burmese border. 

The children waved to us as the speedboat pulled away to head back to Phuket. 

Once they are ready and fully refuelled, the Rohingya's ''holiday'' off Phuket will be at an end.

Burma denies genocide against the Rohingya, who are hated by virtually all of Burma's Buddhist majority. 

But most observers accept that a tactictly approved policy of ethnic cleansing is now forcing thousands of them to flee their homeland any way they can.