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Once a Safe Haven, Bangkok Now a “Hunting Ground” for Dissidents
Joseph steps off the subway train onto Bangkok’s Chatuchak metro station platform. As the 29-year-old Laotian refugee exits to the street above he notices two men trailing behind him. Both men are carrying large suitcases that seem light to the touch as they lift them easily on to the escalator, Joseph* recalls. He had recently…
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Caught in Sri Lanka’s anti-Muslim backlash, evicted refugees search for safe homes
NEGOMBO, Sri Lanka – Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers in Sri Lanka have spent the past three months searching for safety across the island nation after being swept up in an anti-Muslim backlash following the April terrorist attacks that killed more than 250 people. More than 1,000 refugees and asylum seekers were pushed from…
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Rohingya Refugee Voices Amplify Across Southeast Asia
BANGKOK — The 2017 Rohingya humanitarian crisis caused by Myanmar is not only affecting Bangladesh, which has taken in 740,000 refugees, but it’s also causing strife in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Despite Myanmar’s alleged attempts at repatriation, Rohingya have stayed put in camps and cities fearing the security situation in their villages and towns of Rakhine…
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Life as Afghan Refugees, depicted on Malay Stage
Popular Parastoo Theatre group gives voice to the refugee experience. BANGKOK – Live at this year’s Refugee Fest in Malaysia is Parastoo Theatre group. In the Dari language of Afghanistan, “Parastoo” means swallow bird. “They are birds who fly and never find [a] home,” said Saleh Sepas, playwright and director of Parastoo Theatre in Malaysia.…
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Thailand’s Urban Refugees, Migrant Workers and Stateless People
BANGKOK – The stench inside Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Centre is indescribable. The guards give detainees bright orange t-shirts – with a phone number printed on the front – to wear when they enter the IDC reception area. About a dozen visitors line up on the opposite side of a fence separating them from the…
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Airport Asylum Seekers Find Freedom – Southeast Asia Dispatches
BANGKOK – In the past year Southeast Asia provided temporary shelter to two asylum seekers from the Middle East fleeing persecution. Hassan Alkontar and Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun plead for asylum from Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok airports. They were resettled to Canada. But this has led to a backlash online in Malaysia, Thailand, and Canada — where…
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Rohingya Refugees Face New Threat in Bangladesh camps
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh – Inside the sprawling Kutupalong refugee settlement, dust swirls around the barren hills where over half a million Rohingya Muslims have taken shelter after fleeing Myanmar’s Rakhine state. “Before this entire area was covered with trees,” said Zahida Begum as she swept her arm across the vista of Kutupalong’s newest camp extension.…
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Indonesia’s Rohingya Refugees to Resettle to the U.S. or Remain?
In an archipelago with more islands than refugees, Indonesia is looking at ways to provide education, health and housing to its 13,800 registered refugees and asylum seekers. But advocates argue accessing livelihoods is the biggest unmet need. MEDAN, Indonesia – Muhammad Rofiq uses his mobile phone to log into his resettlement case file online, outside of…
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Refugees in Indonesia told assimilate but not settle
JAKARTA, Indonesia – Fatema Barbari tears up as she recounts how police forced her family and 50 other refugees to flee a makeshift camp outside the immigration detention center in Jakarta, Indonesia’s sprawling capital. “They ordered us to leave at night,” Barbari, 39, said as she looked around at her husband and two children at…
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Adam Bemma 