Malaysian arrest 250 Aceh refugees

Malaysian arrest 250 Aceh refugees

Agence France-Presse, Kuala Lumpur

Malaysian police on Tuesday arrested some 250 Acehnese from neighboring Indonesia outside the UN refugee agency's office for not holding valid travel documents, a senior police official said.

"They do not have legal travel documents. We are taking then to a detention center in northern Perak state and they will later be deported," he told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Many of the men, women and children taken into custody at the Brickfields police station had recently fled Indonesia's war- ravaged Aceh province only to be confronted by road blocks leading to the United High Commission on Refugees office in Bukit Petaling, near the capital Kuala Lumpur.

Family members descended on the police station hoping to secure their release.

The police action drew immediate, if gentle, criticism from the UN agency, which sets aside Tuesdays to process new applications.

"We are surprised by what the police did. We are concern about the well-being of the Acehnese," Evan Ruth, head of the UNHCR refugee eligibility unit told AFP.

"We know there has been a significant rise in Acehnese arrivals in Malaysia since the conflict in Aceh broke out."

Ruth said the UNHCR would appeal to the Malaysian government to grant temporary protection for all the detained Acehnese since "we need to verify their status." Their lives could be threatened if they were deported to the conflict region, he added.

"We are intervening at all levels. Our officers are at the police station. We are appealing to the foreign ministry. The UNHCR in Geneva has been alerted to the incident," he said.

Ruth said Malaysia was bound by an internationally-accepted obligation not to deport immigrants to conflict regions.

Dewi, 30, rushed to the police station upon hearing of the arrests of the Acehnese, among them her cousin Maimun Sa Putra, also 30.

Choked with tears, she said: "Please release him. He will not survive in Aceh. Life there is akin to living at the edge of the sword."

The military campaign against separatist rebels in the province at the tip of Indonesia's oil-rich Sumatra province entered its fourth month Tuesday.