Human rights groups have raised alarm after reports that dozens of Rohingya refugees were forcibly deported from India and cast into the Andaman Sea earlier this year, in what the UN has called “unconscionable” acts.
Among them was 55-year-old Nobel Hussain (name changed for safety), who said he and his wife were detained in New Delhi in May, forced onto a military plane, then a naval vessel, and eventually pushed into the sea near Myanmar. “We had to swim for 30 minutes before we saw land and were rescued by locals,” he told Arab News.
Both Hussain and his wife are registered with the UNHCR, yet they now live in hiding in Myanmar, fearing for their lives. Human Rights Watch reported on Friday that more than 200 Rohingya refugees have been deported from India since May 2025, with hundreds more arbitrarily detained.
India, which is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, has no national refugee law. Activists say the crackdown is part of a broader campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, which has been targeting Rohingya and Bengali-speaking Muslims as “illegal immigrants.”
UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews has launched an investigation into the deportations. Rights groups and refugee advocates argue that sending Rohingya back to Myanmar — where the community faces persecution and violence — violates humanitarian principles and India’s own constitution.
Among them was 55-year-old Nobel Hussain (name changed for safety), who said he and his wife were detained in New Delhi in May, forced onto a military plane, then a naval vessel, and eventually pushed into the sea near Myanmar. “We had to swim for 30 minutes before we saw land and were rescued by locals,” he told Arab News.
Both Hussain and his wife are registered with the UNHCR, yet they now live in hiding in Myanmar, fearing for their lives. Human Rights Watch reported on Friday that more than 200 Rohingya refugees have been deported from India since May 2025, with hundreds more arbitrarily detained.
India, which is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, has no national refugee law. Activists say the crackdown is part of a broader campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, which has been targeting Rohingya and Bengali-speaking Muslims as “illegal immigrants.”
UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews has launched an investigation into the deportations. Rights groups and refugee advocates argue that sending Rohingya back to Myanmar — where the community faces persecution and violence — violates humanitarian principles and India’s own constitution.
