The special report now. This week marks
eight years since the military
government in Myanmar launched
widespread atrocities against the
Rahinda population, the predominantly
Muslim ethnic minority. As a result,
more than a million Rahinda fled to
neighboring countries, including to
India. In an exclusive interview with
the BBC, a group of refugees have
recounted how they were deported by the
Indian government and left at sea off
the coast of Myanmar, a country still in
the midst of a brutal civil war. The BBC
South Asia correspondent Samira Hussein
reports from Delhi.
>> For thousands of Rahinga refugees
already living on the brink in India,
things have become much worse.
>> Hello. Hello.
>> Oh, much better.
>> Desperate to tell their story, ripped
from their lives in Delhi. thrown into
the sea and now stranded in Myanmar, a
country they fled in fear of violent
persecution.
>> We don't feel secure in my uh this place
is completely a war zone.
>> Yeah, this this is the place that
>> 40 Rohingya UN recognized refugees
forcibly pushed out by the Indian
government.
We were so helpless
and we were waiting for someone to come
uh to help us.
>> They were flown from Delhi to the
Andaman and Nicobar islands put on a
naval vessel for 14 hours towards
Myanmar then told to board smaller
boats.
>> They brought four life boards and we
were boarded to two life boards. 20
people in each boards. Our hands were
bound in that uh lightboards and uh for
more than seven hours they asked us to
jump off the lightboard one by one and
we swim around 100 plus meter to get the
seashore.
>> When you got on the bus to go to the
boats,
how do you know it was the Indian Navy?
We know that because of the B incription
like
>> the Hindi word for Indian Navy.
>> Then they say one by one pulled aside
and interrogated by Indian authorities
>> and they said why did you come to India
and uh why didn't you see uh uh choose
another country instead of India?
The Indian government has not responded
to our requests for comment.
More than 20,000 Rohingya live in India.
Despite being registered UN refugees,
the Indian government calls them illegal
immigrants.
>> These are people who are not in India
because they want to be. Uh they're
there because of the horrific violence
that that is occurring in in Myanmar.
They literally have been running for
their lives.
>> Among the 40 deported refugees in
Myanmar, Nurlemen's parents.
We are humans, not animals. How can you
just throw people into the sea? In my
heart, there is only this fear that the
Indian government will also take us and
throw us in the sea at any point.
Not welcome in their home country, not
wanted in the country where they sought
refuge. Samir Hussein, BBC News, Delhi.