Rohingya refugees say India forced them into sea, now stranded in conflict-torn Myanmar

Noorul Amin last spoke to his brother on 9 May. The conversation was short, but the news was crushing. He learned that his brother, Kairul, along with four other relatives, was among 40 Rohingya refugees reportedly deported by Indian authorities to Myanmar, the very country they had fled years earlier, reports BBC.

Myanmar is currently engulfed in a bloody conflict between the military junta, which seized power in a 2021 coup, and resistance forces allied with ethnic militias. For Amin, the chances of ever seeing his family again seem vanishingly small. "I could not process the suffering my parents and the others taken are enduring," Amin, 24, told the BBC in Delhi.

Three months after their removal from India's capital, the BBC was able to trace the group inside Myanmar. Most are now sheltering with the Ba Htoo Army (BHA), a resistance faction battling the junta in the country's southwest. "We don't feel safe in Myanmar. This is a total war zone," said Soyed Noor during a video call using a BHA member's phone, speaking from a makeshift wooden hut crowded with other refugees.

Through testimonies from the deported refugees, accounts from their families in Delhi, and expert interviews, the BBC pieced together the journey. They learned the group was flown from Delhi to islands in the Bay of Bengal, placed on a naval vessel, and later abandoned in the Andaman Sea wearing life jackets. The refugees then managed to reach the shore — only to find themselves once again in Myanmar, the country they had escaped amid persecution of the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority.

"They tied our hands, blindfolded us, and transported us like prisoners onto the ship. Then they pushed us into the sea," said John, one of the deported men, in a phone call to his brother shortly after reaching land. "How can anyone throw human beings into the ocean?" Amin asked. "Humanity still exists in this world, but I have not seen any humanity in the Indian government."

On 6 May, the 40 Rohingya — all of whom held UNHCR refugee cards and lived in various parts of Delhi — were called to their local police stations under the pretense of routine biometric registration, a yearly process mandated by India requiring photos and fingerprints. Instead, they say, after hours of waiting, they were taken to the Inderlok Detention Centre.

Amin recalls his brother calling him from there, saying he was being sent to Myanmar, and urging him to find a lawyer and alert the UNHCR. The next day, on 7 May, the group said they were flown from Hindon airport, near Delhi, to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

"After getting off the plane, we saw two buses waiting for us," Noor said on the video call. He noticed the words Bhartiya Nausena (Indian Navy) written on the side. "As soon as we boarded, they tied our hands with plastic bindings and covered our faces with black muslin cloths," he added. The men in charge, dressed in fatigues and speaking Hindi, did not identify themselves.

After a short drive, the refugees were taken aboard a large naval warship in the Bay of Bengal. Once their hands were untied and blindfolds removed, they saw the vessel — a two-deck warship nearly 150 meters long. "Many of those on board wore black trousers, T-shirts, and army boots," said Mohammad Sajjad, another refugee. "Some were dressed in brown, others in black."

The group said they spent about 14 hours on the vessel, where they were given Indian food such as rice, lentils, and paneer. Yet some described being humiliated and beaten. "We were treated horribly," Noor said. "Several were beaten severely. They slapped us multiple times."

On the call, Foyaz Ullah displayed scars on his wrist and recounted being punched and slapped on his back and face, as well as poked with a bamboo stick. "They kept asking, why are you in India illegally, why are you here?"

Although the Rohingya are a Muslim-majority community, of the 40 deported in May, 15 were Christians. Noor said the men escorting them mocked their faith, "They asked, why didn't you convert to Hinduism? Why did you leave Islam for Christianity? They even forced us to pull down our pants to check if we were circumcised."

Another refugee, Eman Hussain, said personnel accused him of being involved in the 22 April Pahalgam massacre, in which 26 civilians — mostly Hindu tourists — were killed in Kashmir. The Indian government has blamed Pakistani militants for the attack, though Islamabad denies involvement, and no evidence has linked Rohingya to the killings.

On 8 May, at around 7pm local time (12:30 GMT), the refugees were ordered to descend a ladder off the side of the naval vessel. Below, they saw four black rubber rescue boats. They were divided into two groups of 20, each escorted by Indian personnel, while two other boats with over a dozen officers led the way. For more than seven hours, they traveled with their hands still tied.

"One of the boats reached the shoreline and tied a long rope to a tree, then brought it back to our boats," Noor recalled. They were given life jackets, their hands were freed, and they were told to jump into the sea. "We held onto the rope and swam about 100 meters to shore," he said, adding they were told they had landed in Indonesia. Soon after, the escorts departed.

But when local fishermen discovered them in the early hours of 9 May, they were informed they were in fact in Myanmar. The fishermen let them use their phones to call relatives in India.

Since then, the Ba Htoo Army has been providing them food and shelter in Myanmar's Tanintharyi region. But their families in Delhi are consumed with fear over what might happen next. The UN warned that India had put the refugees' lives "at extreme risk" by forcing them into the Andaman Sea.

"I've been personally investigating this deeply disturbing case," said Tom Andrews, the UN's Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar. While he could share limited details, he said he had spoken with eyewitnesses and confirmed their accounts as credible.

On 17 May, Amin and another relative of the deported filed a petition in India's Supreme Court, demanding the refugees' immediate return, a halt to further deportations, and compensation for all 40 individuals.

"It exposed the horror of the Rohingya deportation," said senior Supreme Court lawyer Colin Gonsalves, who is representing the petitioners. "The idea that people could be dropped into the sea with life jackets in a war zone was so shocking that many refused to believe it at first."

Yet when the case was presented, one Supreme Court judge dismissed the allegations as "fanciful ideas" and said the petitioners lacked sufficient evidence. The court has since scheduled a hearing on 29 September to decide whether Rohingya in India should be recognized as refugees or treated as illegal immigrants subject to deportation.

Why Indian authorities singled out these 40 people remains unclear, given that tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees live in India. "Nobody can understand why they did it, apart from this venom against Muslims," Gonsalves said.

The ordeal has sent shockwaves through the Rohingya community in India. Many have gone into hiding; others, like Amin, live in fear. He no longer stays at home and has sent his wife and three children elsewhere. "I only fear that the government will come for us too — that one day we will also be taken and thrown into the sea," he said.

"These people are not in India by choice," said the UN's Andrews. "They are there because of the horrific violence in Myanmar. They have literally been running for their lives."