
More than twenty Rohingya refugees have been found alive in Malaysia after they were feared dead last week. The news was reported by a senior coastguard official on Monday.
Twenty six refugees were found hiding in the bushes on a nearby small island. The group of refugees was feared dead after reports of them missing surfaced.
Malaysia has been harsh on the undocumented foreign workers, especially theRohingya refugees.
The refugees could be found after one refugee swam ashore from a small boat on Langkawi on Saturday night.While the officials feared that the rest of the group had drowned, they continued the search and found them on a small island off the coast.
“They were found hiding in the bushes on the island,” Mohd Zubil Mat Som, director-general of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said.
The group of refugees were suspected to have sneaked into the Malaysian border on a small boat. “Our investigations found that this syndicate transfers migrants from motherboats near the maritime border to local fishing boats to evade local authorities,” MMEA’s provincial director Mohd Zawawi Abdullah