RI TO DEPORT 114 ROHINGYA BOAT PEOPLE

Banda Aceh, May 26 (ANTARA) - Indonesia will in the near future deport to their country of origin 114 of the 391 Rohingya boat people who have been staying in Aceh since January 2009, a foreign miinistry official said.

"They will be repatriated to Bangladesh in the near future and they have agreed to be returned to their country," Central and South Asian Affairs Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs M Asruchin said after a meeting with the Aceh vice governor here on MOnday.

He said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had conducted verification of the Rohingya boat people who came ashore in Sabang and Idi Rayeuk, East Aceh district. Of the Rohingya boat people, 114 were Bangladeshi citizens.

According to Asruchin, the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR) will take over the problem of the Rohingya boat people who refused to return to their country.

"If I am not mistaken the UNHCR is already there and if they are already there the boat people will be declared as refugees. Usually, a third country which is prepared to accommodate them will be sought," he said.

Last January, 193 Rohingya were rescued by the Indonesian navy after they sailed into Indonesian waters near Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra.

Indonesian authorities have refused to offer asylum to any of this first group of boat people, saying that they are economic migrants and not refugees fleeing persecution.

Thailand's House committee on security said that international human traffickers were behind the massive influx of Rohingya boat people, who said that they were fleeing discrimination in Burma's Arakan State.

A rising tide of Rohingya refugees has been fleeing Burma to the neighboring countries of Indonesia, Malaysia and India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Their numbers usually increase after November, when the seas are at their calmest. Many seek to escape the economic hardship of their restricted lives and turn to brokers to find a better life in countries such as Malaysia and Thailand.