Survivors of forced return to Myanmar now face detention, extortion, and renewed risk of refoulement in Thailand
(BANGKOK, April 8, 2026)—Thailand should immediately provide legal status and support third-country resettlement for Rohingya refugees forcibly returned to Myanmar by Indian authorities and later forced to flee to Thailand, where they now face extortion, arbitrary detention, and risk of further forced return, Fortify Rights said today. Ten months ago, Indian authorities forcibly returned a group of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, where they face genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The group later fled to Thailand seeking protection.
“Rohingya refugees are being pushed from one danger to another, and no one should have to live like this,” said Puttanee Kangkun, Director at Fortify Rights. “Governments in the region must stop forcing refugees into harm and instead ensure coordinated, lawful pathways to protection that respect their human rights and dignity. We are ready to support them in this.”
In February 2026, Fortify Rights interviewed 14 Rohingya survivors from the larger group ofRohingya—both Christian and Muslim—who reached Thailand that month after Indian authorities forcibly returned them to Myanmar from New Delhi, India, approximately one year ago. The well-being and whereabouts of four survivors are unknown, according to Fortify Rights. All hold refugee cards issued by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)—the U.N. agency mandated to protect refugees.
Fortify Rights is withholding the identities of survivors mentioned here and using pseudonym to protect them from retaliation.
In May 2025, under the pretext of a routine biometric verification exercise for refugees, New Delhi police detained Rohingya men and women, flew them to a remote island in the Andaman Sea, equipped them with life jackets, and abandoned them at sea near Myanmar, where they face an ongoing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The group—ranging in age between 21 and 60 and including several women—then spent several months in an armed-conflict zone in Myanmar’s Tanintharyi Region before fleeing to Thailand earlier this year.
The U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, referred to India’s actions as “unconscionable, unacceptable acts” and presented evidence of the allegations to the Government of India in May 2025. The BBC, Associated Press, and others also reported on the situation.
Women survivors told Fortify Rights that Indian police verbally harassed them during the February 2025 biometric verification exercise.
Indian authorities later arrested, detained, and interrogated Rohingya refugees at Dwarka District Police Station in Uttam Nagar, a suburb in New Delhi, before initiating their refoulement.
At the Navy facility, Indian Navy personnel handcuffed and blindfolded the Rohingya men. Several men also reported to Fortify Rights that Navy personnel beat them.
Indian Navy personnel also sexually assaulted some Rohingya women in detention.
On May 7, 2025, around 2 a.m., the Indian Navy confiscated most of the refugees’ mobile phones and documents, including their UNHCR cards, gave them life jackets, and loaded them into two small boats, telling them that they would be taken to Indonesia. The Navy officers accompanied the two motorboats carrying the refugees, each carrying approximately 20 people.
After reaching the Myanmar shoreline, Indian Navy personnel tied a rope from a tree to the boats and forced the refugees into the sea, leaving them to pull themselves to shore.
The refugees later discovered they had landed on the mainland in Dawei, Tanintharyi Region, Myanmar—a site of heavy armed conflict between the Myanmar military junta and People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). Local fishermen assisted the group in reaching territory controlled by the local PDF group, where they remained for approximately nine months amid active armed conflict. The refugees reported that the group had taken good and appropriate care of them; however, the area is an active war zone and unsafe.
Fearing the regular aerial bombardments and shelling by the Myanmar military junta and unable to safely relocate within Myanmar due to the ongoing genocide and war crimes against the Rohingya, the group fled to Thailand.
The group of refugees re-fled Myanmar in February 2026 and are now in an undisclosed location.
All survivors said they cannot return to Rakhine State due to decades of persecution, discrimination, and violence. They described land confiscations, forced labor, torture, segregation, and religious persecution at the hands of Myanmar authorities. Many fled as children or young adults, first to Bangladesh and later to India.
More than one million Rohingya refugees, many of whom fled genocidal attacks by the Myanmar military in 2016 and 2017, live in overcrowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh. Several hundred thousand live in Southeast Asia, primarily in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. An estimated 500,000 Rohingya remain in Rakhine State, Myanmar, and continue to face genocide and other international crimes as well as restrictions on basic rights, including freedom of movement and equal access to full citizenship rights.
In January this year, the International Court of Justice in The Hague held public hearings in The Gambia v. Myanmar, a landmark case under the 1948 Genocide Convention alleging that Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya people in Rakhine State. A verdict is expected later this year.
Thailand does not recognize refugees and provides few protections to them, routinely subjecting them to arrest, detention, exploitation, and refoulement. UNHCR confirmed to Fortify Rights that the agency does not have permission to facilitate a refugee determination process for these newly arrived Rohingya Refugees.
In 2019, the Thai government endorsed the National Screening Mechanism (NSM) to screen and protect persons who fled persecution in their home country. However, Rohingya are arbitrarily excluded from the NSM on broadly defined “national security” grounds. Since October 2024, Thai authorities have only granted protected status to seven individuals, despite an estimated tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers in Thailand who could qualify for screening and protection under the NSM.
Under Thailand’s 1979 Immigration Act, undocumented persons found in Thailand, including those recognized by UNHCR as refugees and holding UNHCR refugee cards, are considered in violation of the Act and subject to arbitrary arrest and detention.
Although Thailand enacted the Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act in October 2022, which prohibits refoulement —the forced return of a person to a country where they face a real risk of torture or other serious harm— Fortify Rights continues to document Thai authorities forcibly returning refugees to places where they face a high risk of such harm.
Moreover, returning Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, where they face genocidal violence and ongoing armed conflict, violates the general principle of non-refoulement, which is binding on all states as part of customary international law.
“These Rohingya survivors were unlawfully forced back into a conflict zone and are now left without protection,” said Puttanee Kangkun. “India should investigate and hold to account officials involved in any and all forced returns and abuse of refugees. Thailand has an obligation to protect these and all refugees from arbitrary arrest and refoulement.”
Update: This news release was updated on April 13, 2026, to redact survivors’ testimony following a post-publication request by the survivors.
Photo credit: ©Fortify Rights, 2026