OVER 100 Rohingya refugees have fled a detention centre in Malaysia following a protest.

One of the escapees has been killed trying to cross a road but 400 police have been deployed to hunt down the rest, Immigration Department director-general Ruslin Jusoh said today. In total 115 Rohingya fled the camp and 16 Myanmar nationals. It is the largest breakout since 2022, when 528 Rohingya broke out of a camp.

Human Rights Watch says Rohingya refugees in Malaysia, including children, are imprisoned in poor conditions and face violence from guards and other inmates. The country refuses to recognise their refugee status and even those with documents from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees affirming this are arrested, it charges.

Thousands of Rohingya are fleeing Myanmar and Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands who fled ethnic cleansing in Myanmar in 2017 are housed in vast refugee camps but denied the right to work, in dangerous boat crossings to Indonesia and Malaysia. Last year, 4,500 attempted the crossings with 569 dead or missing at sea. On Thursday 131 landed in the Indonesian province of Aceh.