Human Rights Watch called on the Thai government to grant the recently rescued Rohingya Muslims immediate access to refugee status determination procedures.

On June 4, the Thai authorities found 59 people from the Rohingya minority on one of its islands, who they said had been abandoned by smugglers on their way to Malaysia, according to what a senior police officer said on Sunday.

The group - which includes five children - was found on Koh Dong Island in Satun Province last Saturday, according to a senior security source.

"The Thai government should end its policy of locking rescued Rohingyas on boats," said Elaine Pearson, acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

"Thailand should allow the United Nations refugee agency to examine the status of all Rohingya arriving in Thailand to identify and assist those seeking refugee status," she added.

And every year, thousands of Rohingya Muslims - who suffer persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar - risk their lives by making expensive trips that last for months to reach Malaysia via the seas of Thailand.


The police said that the Rohingyas have been charged with entering the country illegally and may be deported to Myanmar after the case is brought to court.

The Thai police said they are providing them with humanitarian aid, and will investigate whether they are victims of human smuggling or have entered illegally.

A police statement said that the group members were "starving, and it is likely that they had not eaten any food for three to five days."

The group told the police that their boat was among three boats carrying 178 people that left Myanmar and Bangladesh, after they paid the smuggler about 5,000 ringgit (1,300 dollars) for the trip.

The Malaysian authorities stopped the first two boats with 119 people on board, and arrested those on board, according to a Thai police statement.

The crew then decided to leave the people on board on Koh Dong island, and told them they had arrived in Malaysia, the group said to the police.

The incident comes after the bodies of 14 Rohingya people - some of them children - were found on a beach last May after they tried to flee Myanmar.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled the military campaign that targeted them in Myanmar in 2017, and spoke of being killed, raped and burned.