JAKARTA, Jan 29: Sobbing in an Indonesian hospital, a Rohingya migrant from Myanmar said on Thursday he faced certain death if forced home, piling more pressure on countries in the region to treat the Muslim minority as refugees.

“We have heard we’d be sent back to Myanmar,” Noor Mohammad, one of a group of Rohingya who washed up off the coast of Indonesia’s Aceh province three weeks ago, told Al Jazeera English Television.

“In that case, we will ask the Indonesians to kill us. Better we die in the hands of Muslims,” he added. “If we go back, we’ll definitely be killed.”

His testimony shines a harsh light on the plight of the former Burma’s estimated 800,000 Rohingya, and the Thai military’s handling of the hundreds who flee in rickety wooden boats every year in search of better lives.

The Thai army has admitted to towing hundreds far out to sea before cutting them adrift, but has insisted they had adequate food and water and denied persistent reports the boats’ engines were sabotaged.

Of 1,000 Rohingya given such treatment since early December, 550 are feared to have drowned.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who has made much of his respect for human rights in his six weeks in office, has also tried to paint the Rohingya as illegal economic migrants rather than genuine asylum seekers.

In its preliminary look at the 193 who washed up on Aceh, Jakarta came to a similar conclusion.

Neither Thailand nor Indonesia are signatories to the widely-accepted 1951 Refugee Convention which defines who is a refugee, their rights and the legal obligation of states.

INVESTIGATION: The view of Indonesia and Thailand that they are economic migrants is at odds with Noor’s testimony, as well as that of a group 78 Rohingya now in Thai police custody with wounds on their bodies they say were inflicted by Myanmar naval officials.

Noor said his group were intercepted by the Myanmar navy as they chugged south towards Thailand and Malaysia, and were beaten but then released.

“We were told by the navy not to come this way again and to tell others to also not come this way,” he said, adding they were then given some fuel, a compass and directions to Thailand.—Reuters