Malaysia Starts Myanmar Repatriation Despite UN, Rights Group Warnings

Malaysia has begun returning Myanmar nationals to their home country under a voluntary repatriation programme, even as the United Nations refugee agency and rights organisations warn that conditions there remain unsafe.

The first group of 1,476 people set off on Tuesday, part of a plan to send back 5,000 Myanmar nationals in stages. As of August 15, Malaysia's Home Ministry was holding 10,388 Myanmar nationals at immigration detention depots across the country.

A ministry official confirmed the operation was under way. Buses believed to be carrying returnees reached a stadium in Manjung town in central Perak state, where security was tight, while ships thought to be from Myanmar were docked at the nearby Lumut naval base.

The ministry said those in the first group had agreed to return and that the process would be carried out safely using two Myanmar navy warships and a hospital ship. Details of the returnees' identities and circumstances were not immediately available.

Myanmar has been gripped by armed conflict and political instability since the military seized power in 2021. The UNHCR and rights groups have urged caution over the programme, saying security and humanitarian conditions in parts of the country remain volatile and that those sent back could face serious risks.

Malaysia hosts about 215,600 refugees and asylum seekers registered with the UNHCR, including roughly 126,000 Rohingya, most of them Muslim, who form one of Southeast Asia's largest refugee communities. Malaysia is not a party to the UN Refugee Convention and treats refugees as undocumented migrants.

Rohingya have faced decades of discrimination and persecution in Myanmar, where authorities largely denied them citizenship and refused to recognise them as an ethnic group. They have also encountered growing hostility in Malaysia, driven by concerns over jobs, public services, security and the size of the refugee population, along with misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric on social media.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has defended the repatriation policy as a diplomatic effort to find a long-term solution, saying Malaysia cannot host refugees indefinitely and that Myanmar must take responsibility for its citizens. He has said he plans to invite Myanmar leader Min Aung Hlaing to Malaysia to discuss the long-running refugee and undocumented migrant issue.

"I am inviting him to say that we can be friends and trade, we can accept Myanmar, but Myanmar must accept them back," Anwar said in a podcast posted online on September 16. "To me, that's better diplomacy than just shouting angrily at Myanmar."

Myanmar Foreign Ministry official Han Win Aung has said the plan follows repatriation operations in 2021 and 2022, when Myanmar received more than 1,100 of its nationals stranded in Malaysia. He said the exercise involves genuine citizens and is not about bringing back Rohingya people.