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Photos show refugees cast adrift by Thai military
Sydney Morning Herald - January 27, 2009
Peter Hawkins – The first pictures have emerged showing hundreds of refugees who had fled Burma being towed into international waters on the order of the Thai Army and abandoned at sea.
The Herald reported last week that about 1000 refugees had been taken into international waters by Thai Army boats and abandoned with barely a day's supply of rice and water.
The new photos, supplied to the television network CNN, are believed to have been taken by someone involved in the operation. They show refugees being towed on a small, overcrowded boat by the Thai Army before being cut loose and abandoned.
CNN reported that up to 190 refugees, mainly Rohingya Muslims from western Burma, were crowded onto a single boat.
The Thai Army has been executing a policy of detaining refugees on the island of Koh Sai Baed, before casting them adrift in unpowered vessels.
About 500 men are now missing and feared drowned, and Thailand faces the possibility of bodies washing up on popular tourist beaches in Phang Nga and Phuket.
Since media reports began circulating about the mistreatment of the refugees, Thailand has faced international condemnation, and the Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, has promised an investigation.
Shocked tourists holidaying in Thai coastal resorts have provided to international newspapers, including the Herald, photographs of refugees lined up on beaches at gunpoint.
Mr Vejjajiva had said the Rohingya boat people would be "pushed out of the country" as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported last week.
The officer at the centre of the controversy, Colonel Manat Kongpat, of the Thai Army's Internal Security Operations Command has reportedly denied the allegations, saying the refugees were given food and water and helped on their way after villagers repaired their boats.
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