Indian authorities allegedly forced dozens of Muslim Rohingya refugees off a naval vessel into the sea near Myanmar after providing them with life jackets, a United Nations agency, family members of the refugees and their lawyer said.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a statement last week, said at least 40 Rohingya refugees were detained in New Delhi and cast into the sea by the Indian navy near the maritime border with Myanmar.
The refugees — including children, women and older people — swam ashore, but their whereabouts in Myanmar remain unknown, the agency said.
Five Rohingya refugees on Friday confirmed to The Associated Press that their family members were part of the group that were detained by Indian authorities on May 6.
Dilawar Hussain, a lawyer representing the refugees, said the families have filed a petition in India’s top court, urging the Indian government to bring them back to New Delhi.
In its statement Thursday, the rights office said it had appointed a UN expert to probe into what it called were “unconscionable, unacceptable acts.”
The UN agency urged the Indian government to refrain from “inhumane and life-threatening treatment of Rohingya refugees, including their repatriation into perilous conditions in Myanmar.”
Tom Andrews, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, called the incident “blatant disregard for the lives and safety of those who require international protection” and “nothing short of outrageous.”
“Such cruel actions would be an affront to human decency and represent a serious violation of the principle of non-refoulment, a fundamental tenet of international law that prohibits states from returning individuals to a territory where they face threats to their lives or freedom,” Andrews said in the statement.
In recent years, hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya refugees have fled persecution in Myanmar after suffering oppression in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where officials have been accused of genocide.
According to Refugees International, of the estimated 40,000 Rohingya refugees living in India at least 22,500 are registered with the UNHCR.
Many of them live in squalid camps in various Indian states.
In recent years, Rohingya refugees have faced persecution and attacks from India’s Hindu nationalist groups, who have demanded their expulsion from India.
Many of them have also been held in various detention centers across India and are viewed as illegal immigrants. Some have been deported to neighboring Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government implemented a controversial citizenship law that critics say discriminates against Muslim migrants, including Rohingyas.