A group of 13 Myanmar workers in Kuala Lumpur were attacked by several assailants with machetes at around 10pm on Thursday while walking home from work. Four were killed on the spot, and three were sent to the Serdang general hospital with serious injuries. One of the injured victims died on Friday night.
U San Win, the chairman of the Kathpone Free Funeral Service Society in Kuala Lumpur, told The Irrawaddy that the workers were on their way home from work at a television hardware factory in the Bukit Serdang area of southern Kuala Lumpur.
The survivors of the attack were not able to identify the assailants, who attacked the Myanmar workers on an unlit street.
The Myanmar embassy in Kuala Lumpur has filed a case at a local police station and has called for an investigation of the attack.
The motive for the attack is not yet known.
Malaysia is home to more than 400,000 migrant workers from Myanmar, of whom about 100,000 not legally registered.
In December, the Myanmar government announced that it would stop sending migrant workers to Malaysia after the country’s prime minister Najib Razak led a rally of thousands of people in the capital to denounce Aung San Suu Kyi’s complicity in the “genocide” against the Rohingya in Rakhine State.
Around 25 Myanmar nationals were killed in Malaysia between June 2013 and September 2014, prompting thousands to return to Myanmar in 2014.
The Myanmar embassy in Kuala Lumpur formed a task force including members of around 50 civil society organizations to protect and assist Myanmar workers in Malaysia, Myanmar Times reported.
A suspected Islamic State supporter from Indonesia was arrested in Malaysia last month for allegedly planning an attack on Myanmar. A Malaysian counter-terrorism official said the would have been in response to the Myanmar military’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State.
Reader Interactions