Malaysia hosts Myanmar's Min Aung Hlaing as deportations continue

Min Aung Hlaing in April 2026, shortly after becoming president. Photograph: Zawzawaungthwin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Malaysia's prime minister Anwar Ibrahim has hosted Myanmar's military-backed president Min Aung Hlaing and pledged to help bring Myanmar back into the regional fold, as Kuala Lumpur presses ahead with deporting Myanmar nationals despite UN warnings that they face persecution and forced conscription.

Min Aung Hlaing, who led the 2021 coup and became president in April after military-run elections widely condemned as a sham, arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday for a two-day official visit. He was received with a guard of honour and held talks with Anwar at Perdana Putra in Putrajaya on Thursday. Malaysia's foreign ministry described the visit as "direct engagement" in line with an ASEAN summit decision in May.

Anwar thanked the Myanmar leader for accepting 10,493 Myanmar nationals returned so far, saying returns would take place on a "voluntary, safe and dignified basis", and pledged to work towards Myanmar's reintegration into ASEAN, which has barred its leaders from high-level meetings since the coup. Min Aung Hlaing said those held in Malaysian immigration detention would be taken back "as soon as possible".

"Because the current weather is favourable, I will dispatch navy ships to repatriate them," he said.

Anwar's political secretary, Kamil Abdul Munim, said the engagement should not be read as recognition of the military-backed government. Richard Horsey of the International Crisis Group said: "He says this is not recognition, but Min Aung Hlaing will present it as exactly that."

Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in Tokyo in June 2026. Photograph: Cabinet Public Relations Office, Government of Japan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

Deportations

The visit comes days after Malaysia sent 1,476 Myanmar nationals home on Myanmar navy ships, the first phase of a plan to return up to 5,000. Malaysia's communications minister Fahmi Fadzil said a further 3,524 people had been approved for return. Around 10,400 Myanmar nationals are held in Malaysian immigration detention, according to Human Rights Watch, which noted that Malaysia has denied the UN refugee agency access to its detention centres since 2019.

"We are concerned by these returns at a time when people sent back to Myanmar may face serious risks," said Edem Wosornu, UNHCR's assistant high commissioner for protection, in a statement. The agency said it had no role in the operation.

Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said Malaysia "should not be outsourcing the decision about who can safely return to Myanmar to the junta authorities".

Rohingya children in Selayang, Malaysia. File photograph: Firdaus Latif / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

The Rohingya

Malaysia is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention. About two-thirds of the Myanmar refugees registered with UNHCR in Malaysia are Rohingya, the Muslim minority that Myanmar does not recognise as an ethnic group. Neither leader said whether Rohingya returns were discussed.

In November 2024, the International Criminal Court prosecutor applied for an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya. The International Court of Justice is expected to rule this month on whether Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya in 2017, as Rohingya villages in northern Rakhine continue to be razed.

In Sri Lanka, more than 100 Rohingya asylum seekers, many of them women and children, have been held at a military base in Mullaitivu for more than a year, with UNHCR denied access to assess their claims.