COUNTRIES that have signed the United Nations’ Refugee Convention should be the ones taking in Rohingya asylum seekers, Senior Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said.

He was asked on Malaysia’s stand after a group of more than 260 asylum seekers landed near Langkawi yesterday.

“We are not going to accept Rohingya. Maybe other countries can, those who have signed the (refugee) convention can take them in.

“If they land here, we will send them back to Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh or to Bhashan Char island, which was developed to house the Rohingya,” Ismail Sabri said during his daily briefing on Covid-19 security matters today.

The 269 Rohingya who arrived by boat yesterday were detained after some jumped into the sea as a Malaysian coastguard vessel approached, according to The New Straits Times.

The rest were later brought to shore after the body of a dead woman was found on the boat.

Ismail Sabri said the boat that arrived yesterday could not be turned away as it was damaged beyond repair.

“Either we save them or we let them die. We cannot leave them to die so we rescue them, but we will send them back to Cox’s Bazar if that’s where they came from,” the defence minister and National Security Council spokesman said.

Malaysia, which once tolerated the presence of persecuted Myanmar minority, has turned back 22 asylum-seeker boats trying to enter the country illegally since the start of May in a bid to halt imported Covid-19 infections.

In previous boat push-backs, the authorities have said they supplied food and water to the Rohingya before turning them away.

Malaysia is not a party to the UN’s 1951 convention on refugees, and does not accord them legal protection.

Asylum-seekers who end up in Malaysia will be given a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) identification card while their claims to refugee status are assessed but they are not legally allowed to work. – June 9, 2020.