KYAUKTAN, Myanmar--Myanmar immigration authorities detained 106 Rohingya Muslims aboard a boat off Yangon on Friday, officials said, raising fears of a fresh wave of dangerous voyages after a 2015 crackdown on people smugglers.
The boat was bound for Malaysia when authorities stopped it in the early morning some 30 km (20 miles) south of Myanmar's largest city, Kyaw Htay, an immigration officer from Kyauktan township, told Reuters by phone.
The group boarded the vessel from internal displacement camps outside Sittwe, the capital of western Rakhine state, he said. "Their destination was Malaysia. The boat was stopped after the engine failed," he said.
Tens of thousands of Rohingya have been confined to sprawling camps outside Sittwe since violence swept Rakhine in 2012. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled a brutal army crackdown in the northern part of the state last year, according to U.N. agencies. The Rohingya say soldiers and local Buddhists massacred families, burned hundreds of villages, and carried out gang rapes. U.N.-mandated investigators have accused the Myanmar army of "genocidal intent" and ethnic cleansing.
Myanmar denies almost all of the allegations, saying security forces were battling terrorists. Attacks by Rohingya insurgents calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army preceded the crackdown.
Officials say they are ready to accept Rohingya who want to return from Bangladeshi refugee camps. But on Thursday, efforts to repatriate several thousand failed after refugees protested, saying they did not want to return. U.N. officials and aid agencies opposed the plan, saying conditions in Myanmar were not safe.
