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Myanmar's Rohingya migrants face grim life back home

By Praveen Menon and Trinna Leong

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Mass graves and suspected human trafficking detention camps have been discovered by Malaysian police in towns and villages bordering Thailand, the country's home minister said on Sunday.

Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said officials are determining whether the graves were of human trafficking victims, but did not say how many dead bodies were discovered.

"This is still under investigation," he told reporters at the sidelines of an event in Kuala Lumpur.

According to media reports, the mass graves were believed to contain bodies of hundreds of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Police discovered 30 large graves containing the remains of hundreds of people in two places in the northern state of Perlis, which borders Thailand, the Utusan Malaysia newspaper reported.

The Star newspaper reported on its website that nearly 100 bodies were found in one grave on Friday.

"I reckon it was a preliminary finding and eventually I think the number would be more than that," Ahmad Zahid said when asked about reports of the number of mass graves discovered.

Ahmad Zahid said that the camps identified are in the areas of Klian Intan and villages near the border.

"They have been there for quite some time. I suspect the camps have been operating for at least five years," he said.

A police spokeswoman declined to comment saying a news conference on the issue would be held on Monday.

A police official who declined to be identified said police commandos and forensic experts from the capital, Kuala Lumpur, were at the site but it was not clear how many graves and bodies had been found.

"Of course I believe that there are Malaysians involved," Ahmad Zahid said, when asked on possible involvement of locals in the incident.

Northern Malaysia is on a route for smugglers bringing people to Southeast Asia by boat from Myanmar, most of them Rohingyas, who say they are fleeing persecution, and people from Bangladesh seeking work.

Smugglers have also used southern Thailand and Utusan Malaysia and police believe the discovery had a connection to mass graves found on the Thai side of the border this month.

Twenty-six bodies were exhumed from a grave in Thailand's Songkhla province, over the border from Perlis, near a camp with suspected links to human trafficking.

More than 3,000 migrants, most of them from Myanmar and Bangladesh, have landed on boats in Malaysia and Indonesia this month after a crackdown on trafficking in Thailand.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday pledged assistance and ordered the navy to rescue thousands adrift at sea.

(Additional reporting by Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah; Editing by Michael Perry)

BEIJING (AP) — The death toll in China's latest round of flooding has risen to at least 52, including two schoolchildren aboard a bus carrying more than twice its authorized passenger load that plunged into a pond, authorities said.

At least six other people are missing in floods that have ravaged mountain districts of six provinces and autonomous regions in central and southeastern China. More than a quarter-million people have been moved to temporary shelters, and major damage has been inflicted on buildings and crops.

Apart from the two schoolchildren, 42 others have died due to floods and heavy rains, including 16 in the collapse of a nine-story building in the city of Guiyang following a landslide.

Eight other people were killed in the central province of Hunan when a bus skidded into a guardrail and overturned.

The Guangxi regional government said 21 other kindergarten students were sent to the hospital in the school bus accident on Friday, with three listed in serious condition. The bus was licensed to carry 11 people, but had a total of 26 on board.

The driver, teachers and school administrators have been taken into custody, the government said. Overloaded buses have been involved in accidents killing scores of children in recent years as local schools are closed and consolidated into larger campuses farther away from the children's village homes.

Seasonal rains cause major flooding around China almost every year. The worst in recent history was in 1998, when 4,150 people died, most of them along the Yangtze River.

The massive Three Gorges Dam has largely contained Yangtze flooding, but the problem persists in other parts of the country.

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NSA Wiretaps in Jeopardy if Senate Doesn't Act

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Security Agency has begun winding down its collection and storage of American phone records after the Senate failed to agree on a path forward to change or extend the once-secret program ahead of its expiration at the end of the month.

Barring an 11th hour compromise when the Senate returns to session May 31, a much-debated provision of the Patriot Act — and some other lesser known surveillance tools — will sunset at midnight that day. The change also would have a major impact on the FBI, which uses the Patriot Act and the other provisions to gather records in investigations of suspected spies and terrorists.

In a chaotic scene during the wee hours of Saturday, Senate Republicans blocked a bill known as the USA Freedom Act, which would have ended the NSA's bulk collection but preserved its ability to search the records held by the phone companies on a case-by-case basis. The bill was backed by President Barack Obama, House Republicans and the nation's top law enforcement and intelligence officials.

It fell just three votes short of the 60 needed for passage. All the "no" votes but one were cast by Republicans, some of whom said they thought the USA Freedom Act didn't go far enough to help the NSA maintain its capabilities.

If Senate Republican leaders were counting on extending current law and continuing the negotiations, they miscalculated. Democrats and libertarian-minded Republicans refused to go along. A bill to grant a two-month extension of the law failed, and senators objected to each attempt by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky offer up a short term extension.

The failure to act means the NSA will immediately begin curtailing its searches of domestic phone records for connections to international terrorists. The Justice Department said in a statement that it will take time to taper off the collection process from the phone companies. That process began Friday, said an administration official who would not be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

NSA Wiretaps in Jeopardy if Senate Doesn't ActPlay video

While the phone records program has never been credited with thwarting a terrorist plot, the Senate failure also imperils other tools that the FBI has been using to hunt for suspected spies and terrorists.

The FBI uses Section 215 of the Patriot Act to gather financial and other types of records in national security cases. Another expiring provision makes it easier for the bureau to track "lone wolf" terrorism suspects who have no connection to a foreign power, and another allows the government to eavesdrop on suspects who continuously discard their cellphones in an effort to avoid surveillance.

Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky's other senator and a Republican presidential candidate, called the Senate's failure to allow an extension of the surveillance programs a victory for privacy rights.

"We should never give up our rights for a false sense of security," Paul said in a statement.

Some civil liberties groups joined Paul in praising the result, saying they would rather see the Patriot Act provision authorizing NSA phone collection expire altogether.

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FILE In this June 6, 2013 file photo, a sign stands outside the National Security Agency (NSA) campu …

"For the first time, a majority of senators took a stand against simply rubber-stamping provisions of the Patriot Act that have been used to spy on Americans," said Michael Macleod-Ball, acting director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

But Nuala O'Connor, CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, called the Senate's inaction "inexcusable after two years of debate and bipartisan compromise."

And a presumed GOP presidential candidate, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, took a veiled swipe at Paul by blaming the failure to extend the Patriot Act on "misguided ideologues who have no real world experience in fighting terrorism."

Section 215 of the Patriot Act is used by the government to justify collecting the "to and from" information about nearly every American landline telephone call.

When former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the program in 2013, many Americans were outraged that NSA had their calling records. Obama ultimately announced a plan similar to the USA Freedom Act and asked Congress to pass it. He said the plan would preserve the NSA's ability to hunt for domestic connections to international plots without having an intelligence agency hold millions of Americans' private records.

Since it gave the government extraordinary powers, Section 215 of the Patriot Act was designed to expire at midnight on May 31 unless Congress renews it. An appeals court has ruled that the phone collection does not comply with the law, but stayed the ruling while Congress debated.

Under the USA Freedom Act, the government would transition over six months to a system under which it queries the phone companies with known terrorists' numbers to get back a list of numbers that had been in touch with a terrorist number.

KUALA CANGKOI, Indonesia (AP) — It was just the two of them, brother and sister, out on the open ocean with hundreds of other desperate migrants, mostly Rohingya Muslims fleeing their homes in Myanmar. For nearly three months, the siblings comforted each other when rolling waves thrashed their boat, when their empty bellies ached and when they were beaten for trying to stand up to stretch their legs.

As the oldest, Mohammad Aesop — just 10 years old — knew it was his job to keep his 8-year-old sister safe. But with the Thai crew wielding guns and threatening to throw troublemakers overboard, he felt helpless.

Theirs was the first boat to wash ashore in Indonesia two weeks ago, followed by a number of other wooden trawlers crammed with hungry, dehydrated people. Many were abandoned at sea by their captains following a regional crackdown on human trafficking networks.

So far, nearly 3,100 Rohingya and Bangladeshis have landed in three Southeast Asian countries, according to the International Organization for Migration. More than half of them wound up in Indonesia, where nearly 170 children who traveled alone — some after being tricked or kidnapped — wait to learn what will happen next.

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In this Friday, May 22, 2015, Atau Rahman, center, sits with Rohingya migrants at a temporary shelte …

Labeled one of the world's most persecuted minorities, the Rohingya have been fleeing predominantly Buddhist Myanmar for decades.

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In this Friday, May 22, 2015, photo, Hussein Ahmed washes himself near a temporary shelter in Bayeun …

But it was only after the country started moving from dictatorship to democracy in 2011 that the numbers really spiraled, with newfound freedoms of expression lifting the lid off deep-rooted hatred felt by many toward the ethnic Muslims. Hundreds were killed, and thousands more were placed in internment camps where they cannot work and medical care is scarce.

In recent months, however, flight from the area has been triggered less by fear than by desperation and greed.

Rohingya brokers, eager to fill boats with human cargo that fetch $100 each, roam villages and displacement camps touting stories of jobs waiting overseas.

Bored, frustrated and naive, youngsters are the easiest to trick. Once on board the ships, they are also the most vulnerable.

At the Indonesian seaside camp in Aceh province's Kuala Cangkoi where Mohammad and his sister now stay, nearly a third of the migrants are children. Some of the smallest Rohingya suck on lollipops and munch on potato chips passed out by local residents and students who come to snap photos of the group. Other exhausted little ones, who went three days without food on the boat, lie face down asleep on the cool white tile of a pavilion where fish is normally hawked.

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In this May 22, 2015, photo, Hussein Ahmed, 12, walks between tents at a temporary shelter in Bayeun …

"The vulnerability of these children can never be overstated," said Steve Hamilton, deputy chief of mission at the International Organization for Migration in Indonesia, adding that the government has said special care will be provided to ensure the safety of unaccompanied minors. "The hardships they have endured at such young ages are heartbreaking."

Mohammad and his sister, Untas Begum, lost their mother three years ago, when sectarian violence in Myanmar's troubled state of Rakhine reached its peak. She was killed by a machete during an attack at a market in the state capital, Sittwe. Her children were taken in by a relative, who struggled to care for them with little money for food.

Their father has been living in Muslim-majority Malaysia, one of the few places where Rohingya can find menial jobs and a semblance of acceptance. He decided it was time for his children to join him, and paid a broker in March to put them on a boat in the Bay of Bengal.

The siblings were forced to sit with their knees bent so that another person could be seated in between their legs — like human dominos stacked together as closely as possible to ensure the biggest payoff from ransoms of around $2,000 per person demanded from the migrants' families after they left Myanmar's territorial waters.

To sleep, they simply leaned back into the chest of the person behind them. When their legs shook and ached from being locked in one position for so long, they were beaten for moving or trying to stand.

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In this Saturday, May 23, 2015, photo, Ethnic Rohingya women and kids gather to eat at a temporary s …

The heat on the boat was oppressive, and the stench of sweat and soured vomit was nauseating. They were given only a few spoonfuls of rice gruel twice a day. Fever, diarrhea and dehydration were common among the children and adults, but no medicine was provided. Untas said she once shivered while burning hot and freezing at the same time.

"We were given a little food and water, and we were on the sea for a long time," she said, sipping water casually though a straw, a precious commodity that such a short time ago was rationed to keep her alive during the journey. "We didn't have our mom or dad on the boat, so we were scared."

Fear and desperation have driven smugglers to flee their vessels following recent arrests and the discovery of dozens of mass graves in Thailand and Malaysia where migrants were held in the jungle before the floating camps were set up offshore. Mohammad said one night a smaller boat approached, and as the captain and crew left, they pointed guns at the people on the larger vessel and told them that anyone who tried to follow would be killed.

"He shot twice into the air. Everyone started screaming and crying," Mohammad said, adding that he threw his sister across his lap to try to shield her with his tiny body. "I thought they would kill all of us."

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The Associated Press spoke to numerous children in Myanmar who managed to escape their boats, along with those who made it to shore in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Some said they ended up at sea after brokers in Rakhine told them that if they left immediately without telling their parents, they could earn big money in Thailand and Malaysia and send it home to their impoverished families. People continued to be loaded even after the crisis began unfolding earlier this month, with abandoned boats being pushed back to sea like pinballs by the region's navies.

Others, like Atau Rahman, 12, of Sittwe, reported being outright kidnapped. He said he and nine other boys were grabbed by a "weird man" and shoved onto a boat where they simply disappeared. They were held for weeks offshore until the boat was finally crammed full of enough bodies to leave.

"I don't know what happened," he said at a camp in the Acehnese town of Langsa, where the most recent vessel landed last week. "We were put on the boat and tied up, and gags were put in our mouths so we couldn't talk."

In a tent just behind him, a little girl with diarrhea lay listless on a plastic tarp with an IV drip strapped to her arm. Skinny women sat nearby on the ground nursing fussy babies, while some children with every rib showing ran naked through the grounds. Indonesian medical workers scurried to conduct basic health screenings and provide vaccinations — likely the first medical care many Rohingya kids have ever received. Meanwhile, a 3-year-old girl died from tetanus after arriving at the local hospital last week, and a few other kids were receiving treatment there.

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In this Friday, May 22, 2015, photo, Hussein Ahmed sorts clothing donated by local residents near at …

"This human tragedy was too cruel for the children to bear. I'm so sad to see their blank gaze when they describe their emotional wounds," said Rudi Purnomo, from the Indonesian nonprofit group Act for Humanity. "The condition of these children in the refugee shelters makes me hug my own kids tighter than usual and feel grateful."

Denied citizenship, the 1.3 million Rohingya living in Myanmar are effectively stateless, wanted not at home nor by any other country.

Governments fear that by letting in even a few poor, uneducated migrants, they will open the floodgates for many. In recent days, Indonesia and Malaysia relented, saying they would provide temporary shelter to 7,000 people — the number who have already landed combined with those believed still stranded at sea.

But they did so only on condition that the international community would resettle them in third countries within a year. So far, the U.S. and the tiny African nation of Gambia are the only countries to raise their hands.

Hussein Ahmed, a 12-year-old Rohingya boy, has stopped trying to imagine a future for himself. He left a camp in Sittwe by himself when a broker convinced his mother he could earn money abroad to support the family since his father was killed three years ago in the violence. After months at sea, he now feels his people may be the most unwanted on earth.

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In this Thursday, May 21, 2015, photo, Untas Begum walks to toward at a temporary shelter in Kuala C …

"I was born in Myanmar, but they don't want me. I tried to go to Thailand or Malaysia, but I can't go anywhere because they don't want me," he said at the Langsa camp. "I was a kid back home, but now I have to be a man. I am in a different country alone. It's up to God — whatever will happen next."

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Associated Press writers Esther Htusan in Langsa, Indonesia, and Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

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Follow Margie Mason on Twitter at twitter.com/MargieMasonAP