Three Myanmar Navy ships carrying 1,476 migrants from Malaysia docked at Thanlyin (a port city near Yangon) on 4 October, the first of some 5,000 people Kuala Lumpur says Myanmar has agreed to take back. Malaysia says all returnees volunteered, but the UN refugee agency says it was denied access to confirm this, and UN rights chief Volker Turk warned against forcible returns to a country in civil war since the 2021 military coup. Rights groups fear that Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority, may be among those sent back, and Malaysia is already preparing to return a second group of more than 3,500.