According to the Immigration Department, 528 Rohingya escaped after breaking into a door and grill at a temporary Penang state detention center. According to the department, 362 detainees were rearrested by police and other agencies.
It stated that “The search is on for the remaining detainees” without giving any details about what caused the breakout.
Mohamad Shuhaily Mohamad Zain, Penang’s chief police officer, said that six people were killed crossing a highway by a car. According to him, the victims were two males, two females, and a boy as well.
Bernama national news agency quoted him as saying that police had created roadblocks in order to search for the remaining detainees. These included 28 women and 12 men. He stated that the detainees were likely to be tired and barefooted, and that they were likely to have been naive.
Malaysia is home to a large Muslim population and is an attractive destination for Muslim Rohingya fleeing Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
Malaysia does not grant refugee status but it hosts approximately 180,000 refugees and asylum-seekers who are accredited with the U.N. Refugee Agency. This includes more than 100,000 Rohingyas and other Myanmar ethnicities. Many more people arrive in the country illegally via sea, but they are not documented.