Following their capture while trying to flee the nation, 112 members of the Rohingya minority, including 12 children, have been imprisoned in Myanmar.
According to local police and a report from the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar on Tuesday, the group was convicted on January 6 by a court in Bogale, in the southern Ayeyarwady region of Myanmar.
According to the story, the gang was detained in December after being found on a motorboat “without any formal documents.”
Five of the 12 kids—all under the age of 13—were given two-year sentences, while the older kids received three-year sentences. According to the newspaper, they were moved to a “youth training school” on Monday.
All of the adults received five years in prison, it continued.
The majority-Buddhist nation of Myanmar maintains that the majority-Muslim Rohingya are “illegal migrants” from South Asia and denies them citizenship and other fundamental rights.
After a harsh military crackdown in 2017 that is currently the focus of an international genocide prosecution, hundreds of thousands of people fled the country for Bangladesh’s neighboring country.
Many of those who are still in Myanmar are imprisoned in camps, where they are subject to harsh movement restrictions that make it difficult for them to work, study, or receive medical care.
The Rohingya, who are referred to as the world’s most persecuted minority, continue to take risky sea voyages from the refugee camps in Bangladesh and Myanmar to Malaysia and Indonesia, Muslim-majority nations, in the hopes of finding better lives there.
After weeks of drifting at sea in their boat, at least 185 Rohingya arrived at Aceh, Indonesia’s most northern province, late last month.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, there were six times as many Rohingya who made these travels in 2018 than there were in 2021.
In the Aceh province of northern Indonesia, two boats carrying a total of more than 200 people arrived ashore last month.
