KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Jamil Shah, a Rohingya refugee, was taken aback when he learned of the riotous event involving members of his community in the Sungai Bakap immigration detention center in Kedah.

        It reminded him of his two-month imprisonment in a Taiping, Perak, immigration detention center when he arrived from Myanmar 22 years ago. "I'm upset and scared about the attempted escape," Mr Jamil told CNA, adding that being confined in such detention centers takes a toll on people's emotions.

        "Refugees such as ourselves... "All we want to do is get out of Myanmar because we want to survive," said a vegetable vendor at Selayang wholesale market in Selangor. Mr Yusof Ali, a community leader among the Rohingya refugee population in Kedah, said the event on Wednesday (April 20) was frightening for the community. He said that all the Rohingyas sought was to live in dignity.

        "We are peace-loving people who merely wish to live in a world where we have some freedom." "We don't want to cause any problems here, and we follow the rules of the nation," he stated. Following a brawl on Wednesday, 528 Rohingya inmates fled the immigration detention center, with six of them murdered while attempting to cross the North-South Expressway.

        All of the inmates who fled were ethnic Rohingya refugees relocated from a camp on Langkawi island after being apprehended for trespassing in Malaysian seas and breaking the country's immigration regulations in 2020, according to Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin. Malaysia is regarded as a preferred destination for Rohingyas who embark on perilous and fatal boat trips from Myanmar or Bangladesh.

        Malaysia, on the other hand, is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its Protocol. As a result, there is no asylum system in place to regulate their legal status and rights. Refugees in Malaysia are primarily looking for temporary work while they wait for resettlement to a third country, which might take years. Mr Jamil, for example, was given a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) card, which serves as an identification document.

        The card is used to recognize a refugee's or asylum seeker's need for international protection, according to the UNHCR website. According to the website, it does not grant the person legal immunity. According to the UNHCR website, each nation has the sovereign right to handle illegal immigration on its own, including deporting people who break immigration rules.

        However, under customary international law, every government – whether or not it is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol – has a responsibility to ensure that refugees are not forcefully returned to a situation where their lives or liberties are jeopardized.

        As of Friday morning, 432 of the undocumented migrants who escaped had been apprehended, with 96 remained on the loose. After interviewing nearly 200 convicts, Kedah Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Director G Suresh Kumar disclosed on Thursday that the violence and breakout occurred because the escapees desired their release.

        He clarified that it was not because the inmates were dissatisfied with the camp's management.

THE ESCAPING GROUP HAS BEEN DETAINED FOR MORE THAN TWO YEARS.

        The group had been kept at the center for more than two years because the deportation procedure could not be completed, according to Mr Hamzah, the home minister. According to Bernama, he stated that the Myanmar government refused to welcome them and refused to recognize their citizenship status. "So, where can they be deported to?" says the narrator. He stated, "This is an issue for us."

        Mr Rafik Shah Mohd Ismail, 46, also known among the Rohingyas in Selayang as "Ustaz Rafik," expressed his anguish over Wednesday's event, saying that words cannot express his thoughts. "I was truly at a loss and feeling terrible, even yesterday after the tragedy," he told CNA on Friday. "These individuals have gone through so much already."

        As of January 2022, Malaysia is home to 181,000 refugees and asylum seekers, according to the UNHCR website. Almost 85% of them are from Myanmar, with roughly 103,000 Rohingyas among them. Mdm Yante Ismail, a UNHCR spokesman in Kuala Lumpur, told CNA that the organization had no knowledge about the Wednesday breakout or the people involved, but expressed regret for the occurrence.

        She also stated that the UNHCR has been denied access to detention centers by immigration authorities since August 2019. Mr Hamzah, the minister, had refused UNHCR requests for access to immigration detention centers in June 2021, claiming that people inside had broken the country's laws.

        "This is our homeland." Why are they trying to gain access to our immigration (depots)? "Can you tell me why?" Mr Hamzah was cited in the Star at the time as stating. In a Facebook post on Friday, former Prime Minister Najib Razak said the government should step up diplomatic efforts to relocate the refugees or provide them with possibilities to contribute to the country's economy before employees from other nations arrive. "Anyway," he added, "it is unjust and absurd for us to keep them jailed for years."

        The Pekan MP went on to say that keeping them in prison centers costs the government a lot of money. Mr Rafik, the chairman of the Rohingya community in Selayang, said the incident on Wednesday made other Rohingya refugees fearful for their safety. "I'm concerned that this will bring more attention to us when all we want to do is survive," he added.