On tip-off, Police personnel from Balik Pulau led by Supt Mohd Hatta arrested 81 boat-people on October 6, between 8:00am to 5:00pm, according to Supt Mohd Hatta , Balik Pulau police.

“The boat-people are aged between 19 and 30.”

“The men were very tired after not having any food for three to five days. We gave them bread and mineral water but some were too weak to even break the seals of the water bottles”.

“The Marine police of Malaysia detained a large fishing boat some 28 to 30 nautical miles from shore with 14 more Burmese nationals on board.”

115 boat-people jumped into the sea at around 3:00am on October 6, holding their meager belongings along with pails, broken life preservers and whatever floating devices those were available were described as being not Rohingya but ''hungry Myanmar nationals.'' and were believed to have reached the shore at Pasir Panjang beach.

The first arrivals boat-people landed on Penang after 10 days at sea, with the desperate boat-people spending the previous three to five days without food or water.

The ''sailing season'' between October and April, for would-be refugee boatpeople from northern Burma and Bangladesh has begun with the arrival off the Malaysian island of Penang of the first vessel on this month.

Anowar Hossain, 23, who was living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh prior to making the trip here, he paid Taka 10,000 to a man (Dalal or agent) who promised to bring him to Malaysia.

“Conditions were very difficult at the Bangladeshi refugee camps so we tried to come to Malaysia. We had food for seven days on the boat, but after that, we have no food,” said Anwar.

It is learnt that a group of 50 people including refugees are ready to go to Malaysia with a rickety engine boat from Coastra Ghat of Cox’s Bazar or Shapuri Dip.

A group of traffickers have been trying to send people to Malaysia since last six months. They are identified as Fazalul Islam, Abdullah, Abdu Salam and Babul, all are hail from Teknaf union. They organized people from refugee camps or along the Bangladesh-Burma border area.

Mostly, the traffickers organized people from Teknaf, Shapuri Dip, Sapran, Bahar Sara and Cox’s Bazar, said a local elder from Shapuri Dip who denied to be named for security reason.

“There is no information about boat leaving to Malaysia recently,” according to the official source.” But, we are on alert to arrest the boat-people.”

Well-informed contacts have revealed that some of the 70 Rohingya boat-people arrested and jailed in Phuket since January, were described in official documents as ''Burmese from the South,'' which made their treatment uncomplicated by international human rights obligations and were eventually trucked to the border port of Ranong in August and last seen heading towards Burma in three longtail boats in Ranong, north of Phuket, each given 4000 baht by a person who said she represented a non-government aid organization, and allowed to leave Thailand , according to Phuketwan.com

Thailand and governments in South-East Asia and beyond appear to now be trying to hide from the world their treatment of the Rohingya and Rohingya boat people.

The word ''Rohingya'' even appears to be no longer favored in general usage. If the word Rohingya is not used, it becomes easier to deny mistreatment.

The recent posting on You Tube of an insightful documentary by Thai film maker Thananuch Sanguansak sheds fresh light on abuse of the Rohingya in Bangkok and Bangladesh especially, although the film's claim that the Royal Thai Navy mistreated the boatpeople.