Burmese boat refugees stage hunger strike on India’s Andaman Islands

DVB: 10 August, 2006

Burmese ‘boat refugees’ who have been detained at an open jail on India’s Andaman Island are staging a hunger strike to highlight their plights.

“What we are demanding are, to improve our food and to give us the permission to go out sometimes and we want to know when we could return to Burma,” said one of the protesters. “Therefore, we asked them to let us meet with their elders (officials). The police who are guarding us did not do that. Therefore, we protested with the desire to see the elders. We have been protesting for two days. We are still doing it and we are at a stage in which we are quite weak. We will continue to protest until we get what we want.”

These Burmese boat refugees were arrested for unwittingly drifting into the Indian waters while fishing. They were each sentenced to six months and detained at an open jail near Taplaboo Jail.

Nearly 380 boat refugees, mostly fishermen have been on Andaman Islands as prisoners for a year and five months, still waiting for the Burmese authorities to take them back to Burma.