The United States (US) on Wednesday led criticism of Malaysia for deporting more than 1,000 Myanmar nationals back to their military-ruled nation in defiance of a court order.The migrants, who activists say include vulnerable asylum seekers, departed Tuesday on Myanmar navy ships from a Malaysian military base just weeks after a coup.Rights groups had fiercely criticised the plan, and hours before the deportation the Kuala Lumpur High Court ordered it be temporarily halted to allow a legal ch

A British judge on Friday handed down sentences of 27 and 20 years to the ringleaders of a people smuggling plot that led to the death of 39 Vietnamese migrants in horrific conditions in the back of a lorry.The 39 – the youngest of whom were two 15-year-old boys – suffocated in the container as they were being transported to what they had hoped would be new lives in Britain. The lifeless bodies of the migrants were discovered inside the sealed unit at a port near London in October, 2

Le Minh Tuan has curled up in the bed of his deceased son every night since the young man suffocated in a truck in Britain alongside dozens of other Vietnamese migrants one year ago.Four men are on trial in London over the deaths of the 39 Vietnamese men and women, facing various charges including manslaughter and conspiracy to smuggle people.But Tuan - like many of their grieving families - does not hold them responsible for the appalling tragedy."I don't blame anyone," he sai

"I am sorry. I cannot take care of you.

When hundreds of Rohingya refugees paid traffickers to escape their squalid camp in Bangladesh, they were promised a new life in Malaysia after just one week at sea.Instead, the group of mostly women and children suffered more than 200 days of terror on the high seas, until they landed this week on Indonesia's northern coast, where they are now back in refugee tents.Beaten by the traffickers, they battled hunger and thirst as storms lashed their wooden vessel, and watched in horror as th

Nearly 300 Rohingya migrants reached Indonesia on Monday claiming to have been at sea for seven months, the United Nations (UN) refugee agency said, in one of the biggest such landings by the persecuted Myanmar minority in years.The migrants - including more than a dozen children - were spotted on a wooden boat by locals who helped them land near Lhokseumawe city on Sumatra's northern coast, officials said.But as many as 30 may have died during the perilous high-seas voyage, the UN said,

Many thousands of migrants have been left stranded by the coronavirus pandemic, unable to move due to lockdowns and border closures around the globe, the United Nations (UN) said Thursday.The UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in Southeast Asia, East Africa and Latin America, many were attempting to return to their countries of origin but were unable to do so.Migrant camps were "very prone" to spreading the disease, IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino to

Labour Day - which falls on 1 May every year - was an eventful day in Malaysia. The ASEAN member state which recently reported a plunge in COVID-19 cases – announced plans to ease the country’s partial lockdown, known locally as the Movement Control Order (MCO). Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said in a special address to the nation that the government will enforce a conditional MCO beginning 4 May.

South Korea experienced one of the world’s largest initial outbreaks of COVID-19 outside China. But, unlike the United States (US) and many European countries, we have been able to contain and drastically reduce the spread of the virus, at least so far – and without imposing a nationwide lockdown.

Card games and karaoke help migrant workers pass the time on the cramped houseboats of Hanoi’s Red River, swapping their privacy to eke out a living selling fruit for a few dollars a day. Temporary residents of these open-air boats have left the countryside in search of higher wages in the city.Life on a floating guesthouse can be tough.