KUALA LUMPUR: Forty-one Rohingya were found on a Malaysian beach yesterday, police said, the second group of the Muslim minority to arrive in the country within weeks, stoking fears of a looming exodus. Many Rohingya have been seeking in recent weeks to leave by sea from Bangladesh, where they live in squalid refugee camps after fleeing their mostly Buddhist homeland Myanmar, before the monsoon season starts in earnest.

Security forces have prevented hundreds from departing for Malaysia with people smugglers on fishing boats. But last month 34 Rohingya arrived in the northern Malaysian state of Perlis, the first group believed to have landed in the country in almost year.

The latest batch, which consisted entirely of men, were found Monday on the same beach as the previous boatload, local police chief Noor Mushar Mohamad said. "This is definitely the work of human smuggling syndicates working with local syndicates," he said. "I fear there could be more Rohingya arrivals unless maritime enforcement agencies step up patrols urgently."

Noor Mushar said initial investigations indicated they could have travelled in a large boat before being transferred to smaller craft by local criminal gangs and ferried ashore. They have been handed over to immigration authorities, he said.

It was not clear whether they had departed from Bangladesh or Myanmar, or when they had arrived.

About 740,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar for Bangladesh following a brutal military clampdown in their home country in August 2017, joining hundreds of thousands already living in crowded camps.

The traditional route to Malaysia is by boat from Myanmar or Bangladesh. Refugees arrive either in Thailand and head overland to Malaysia, or arrive directly in Malaysia. But arrivals have fallen markedly since 2015 when Thailand launched a crackdown, which disrupted the lucrative trade and led to smugglers abandoning huge numbers of refugees at sea.

Relatively affluent, Muslim-majority Malaysia has long been a favorite destination for Rohingya, where they are a source of labor in low-paying industries such as agriculture and construction.Bangladesh deploys border guards to island near Myanmar.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh on Sunday deployed heavily-armed border guards to an island near its southern border with Myanmar for the first time in 20 years, officials said.

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) distributed images showing dozens of troops carrying assault rifles disembarking at Saint Martin's island, a small island in the Bay of Bengal that has caused diplomatic tensions between the neighbors.

The BGB said the troop deployment was part of "regular activities" to ensure border protection and curb drug trafficking. But the force's lieutenant colonel, Sarker Mohammad Mustafizur Rahman, told AFP it was the first time since 1997 their men had landed there.

"After more than 20 years we felt we should deploy," he said. The deployment comes just two months after Bangladesh's foreign ministry summoned Myanmar's ambassador in Dhaka to protest the inclusion of Saint Martin inside their territory in some maps printed inside the Southeast Asian country.

He was also summoned in October last year, after a Myanmar government website depicted the island as within Myanmar's territory. Ties between the neighbors have soured since the Myanmar military launched a crackdown on the Rohingya minority in Rakhine, a troubled western state bordering Bangladesh.

The brutal operation has forced some 740,000 Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh since August 2017, transforming parts near the border into the world's largest refugee camp.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh has accused Myanmar of perpetrating genocide against the Rohingya, who share some cultural and linguistic similarities with Bangladeshis in the country's southeast. - AFP