Malaysia has offered temporary shelter to 131 Thai Mus-lims who fled across the border to Kelantan on Tuesday after losing faith in the government’s ability to protect them.

Meanwhile, three people were killed and 23 injured in a spate of bombs and violence that lasted 24 hours in the strife-torn region.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said his government would prepare shelter for Thai Muslims if the situation continues.

Malaysia was concerned about the problems faced by people in Thailand, he said, given the long and close ties between the two countries.

“However, we are not meddling in Thailand’s domestic affairs,” he said.

Two groups of Muslims – 64 men, 24 women and 43 children – have been staying illegally at two mosques in Kelantan’s Kota Bharu region since Tuesday. They told Malaysian media that they sought refuge after a confrontation with Thai soldiers on Monday.

Abdulrohman Abdulsamad, chairman of Narathiwat Islamic Committee, said information he received indicated that part of the group fled from Ban Rahan in Narathiwat’s Sungai Padi district.

They were confronted by the army on Monday when villagers barred officials from entering the village to investigate the murder of an old imam (religious leader), he said.

“Many people, including children and women, sat on the road to block the soldiers because they didn’t trust the officials and believed they might have been involved in the shooting,” Abdul-rohman told The Nation in a phone interview.

Many of them ran away from home because the officials threatened to punish them for obstucting their work, he said. The government’s blacklist of over 200 Islamic militants had frightened the villagers, he said.

More than half of the people on the list, which was seen by The Nation, are residents of Narathi-wat province.

Narathiwat Governor Pracha Therat said 10 per cent of the villagers who fled are key militants who frequently cross the border to Malaysia to cause trouble. The rest, he said, are just normal job seekers.

Few of them are linked to the incident at the village, he said.

“It’s just propaganda made up by the militants to create the false impression that the authorities hurt Muslims,” he said in a phone interview.

Some of the people in the group were from several districts in the provinces, including Sungai Padi and Joh I Rong, he said. They crossed the border at Tak Bai and Sungai Kolok.

However, Abdulrohman questioned the governor’s assessment and said their refuge looks neither like an insurgent hideout nor a place for normal job seekers.

The religious leader offered to help the authorities to identify the group and persuade them to return home.

Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon instructed the Thai consulate in Kota Bharu to contact the group and coordinate with the Malaysian authorities to verify the villagers’ identity.

“We are working with Malaysia to find the best option to solve

the problem. The government will definitely protect Thai nationals,” he said.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee
The Nation