bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Maseeh Rahman

Indian coastguard officials tell of rescued boatpeople's utter desperation
Commandant Kailash Negi has not known of such desperation among men during his long career in the Indian coastguard.
'Some of the people we rescued on December 27, as soon as we brought them aboard the coastguard ship they fell flat and started licking the water  on the deck,' he said. 'They were really desperate.'
A film of the rescue operation shot by the coastguard and seen by this correspondent also shows a man  with lacerations to his back, injuries received during detention in Thailand, officials said.
'Ultimately we all live in the same world,' Commandant Negi added. 'These are poor people looking for work. But they were treated very harshly, inhumanly, and they were in a horrible condition when we found them.'
The Indian coastguard  has been involved in many rescue operations since its inception over three decades ago. The December 2004 tsunami was the biggest challenge it faced in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands,  which are closer to Thailand and Indonesia than mainland India.
But four years later 'Operation Suraksha [Protection]', as the rescue effort involving the boatpeople has been codenamed, once again has the coastguard operating in the face of extreme tragedy.
'The ship which went to rescue the people from the wooden hull off Little Andaman Island had to first launch its helicopter to winch up six men who were close to death,' said  Inspector General Satya Prakash Sharma of the coastguard. 'Moreover, when we found it the hull was taking in water and was badly waterlogged. Any delay and it would have sunk, and all 88 on it would have died.'
After extensive interviewing  of the survivors - who are a mix of Myanmese Rohingyas and Bangladeshis -  Indian authorities have little doubt about where the engine-less boat came from. But the coastguard  has also done its  own calculations.
'Because of the winds and oceanic currents, we worked out that it started somewhere from the Thai coast,' added Inspector General Sharma.
It is certain now that more than  300 people from this boat are dead, though only four bodies were recovered from Little Andaman Island.
'It took 24 hours to take out two of these bodies stuck in thick mangroves along a creek,' said Commandant Negi. 'So it's possible that many other bodies are lying deep inside mangroves dotting various islands.'
The archipelago has 572 islands, only 38 of which are inhabited.
Commandant Negi believes that underwater currents could have taken  some of the bodies far out to sea.
The Andamans police are not unused to reports of Bangladeshis or Myanmese being sighted on the islands in their jurisdiction or sailing in Indian territorial waters. But the men they have caught in the past, usually with the  coastguard's help, have been poachers. The poachers come to the archipelago to steal its exotic produce - wildlife, timber, fish. The skin of saltwater crocodiles, for instance, sells for a small fortune in the west, while the sea cucumber is highly valued in China.  The interlopers also include Thai fishermen.
Police said 375 Bangladeshis and Myanmese had been apprehended in the Andamans since 2003. But that was before the rescues of boatpeople in the past month.
'I've found that the Myanmese poachers are very poor, wear lungis [sarongs] and rubber slip-ons, often carrying a heavy, sickle-like dao for cutting and chopping,' said noted Andamans environmentalist Samir Acharya.
Commenting on the fears  harboured by Thai authorities, he said: 'They're not militant, so I think it's highly unlikely any of them would want to go to Thailand to join the Muslim insurgency in the south.'
While many of the Rohingya boatpeople regard themselves as refugees, despised in Myanmar for being Muslim, others among those rescued have revealed prosaic reasons for undertaking such a perilous journey.
One man, 22-year-old Abdul Malik, described to Indian officers how he lost his job as a scrap metal cutter in Chittagong in 2006. After a year,  he returned to his village, where he met a broker who said he could arrange passage to Malaysia   and a job.  Instead, the boat journey from Bangladesh ended when they were intercepted by the Thai military, who fired warning shots as they apprehended them.
Mr Malik said the Thais put them on a densely forested island, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards.
After extensive interviews  of the boatpeople - a Myanmese who arrived in the Andamans illegally but who was allowed to stay in Port Blair also  acted as an interpreter -  officials are fairly convinced that, like Mr Malik, all were heading for Malaysia in quest of work as unskilled labourers. 'It's come out in the interrogations that the Bangladeshis and Myanmese look for good pastures in Malaysia,' said Commandant Negi. 'They disembark  in Thailand and then cross overland into Malaysia.'
In fact, the police found that two boatpeople who had managed to swim ashore to Little Andaman Island had remained undetected for a while - until they were found  working for a civil contractor at Hut Bay, the main township on the island. These two Bangladeshis were also brought to Port Blair for interviews.
'But the wages for unskilled labourers are much lower here than in Malaysia,' said Mr Acharya. 'In any case, contractors can legally bring Indian workers from the mainland. So normally the contractors wouldn't risk employing foreigners. The two Bangladeshis must have passed themselves off as Indians.'
The boatpeople are still surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards in the detention camp at Port Blair. But unlike the conditions they described in Thailand - where they said they slept in the open air - they have been housed in thatched huts. They are fed regularly, and those who were ill or injured have been treated in hospital.
Amid the unremitting grimness of the interrogation reports - which include repeated accounts of brutality after being intercepted by the Thai military - one small episode reveals a hint of humanity.
One group of 63 boatpeople described being kept at Ranong harbour for two hours - and during this time they were served ice cream and water. A few of them even said they interacted with an American tourist.



In search of a better life, they found brutality and death