Rohingya refugees may have invited relatives over - Police

The police today claimed that Rohingya refugees settled in Malaysia a long time ago could have coaxed their relatives to come over.

Deputy Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Noor Rashid Ibrahim said these refugees could have possibly invited their relatives to come to Malaysia in search of jobs.

"We have information that they are the ones inviting them (their relatives) to come to Malaysia to work.

"The rest of them are brought by (human trafficking) syndicates," he told reporters at the special operations command in Wang Kelian.

Noor Rashid had accompanied Deputy Home Minister Datuk Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar on a visit to Wang Kelian where 139 graves of alleged victims of human traffickers and 28 abandoned camps used by them have been found.

The discovery came following the landing of over 1,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants in Langkawi early this month.