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Medan. All that the remaining Burmese refugees here want is a future. After 10 years as virtual prisoners in Malaysia and four years in Indonesia, living on little more than a bowl of rice a day and cut off from families and loved ones, their despair is palpable.

“From day to day, this is the situation we face in this shelter,” Rahman Yacub said.

Rachman added that in four years in the country, he had never been visited by representatives from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Dozens of refugees from Burma, Bangladesh and Afghanistan staying at the shelter — provided by the International Organization for Migrants — have had to live on two kilograms of rice a week and a fortnightly allowance of Rp 300,000 ($32).

Yacub acknowledged that he was grateful to the government for being allowed to live in the shelter, but that he and other refugees, including his friend Amir Husein, had never received proper treatment from the North Sumatra administration.

Yacub said the poor treatment could be one reason why 109 Burmese refugees bolted from the shelter two weeks ago.

“This complex used to house 129 Burmese refugees who were transferred from Aceh. Now only 20 remain after the rest ran off to who knows where,” Yacub said, adding that the escapees had left in separate groups, using excuses such as they were going shopping.

“As far as I know, the refugees, transferred from Sabang, Aceh, wanted to go to Australia, Canada or Great Britain, which are considered the best in terms of treatment of refugees,” Husein said.

The head of Polonia Immigration Office Abdul Rahman said last week that the escaped refugees had sneaked out of the shelter, probably heading for Malaysia through Tanjung Balai Port. Forty of them, Abdul said, had already been apprehended by the Malaysian police.

Yacub and Husein said they had refused to follow their friends.

Husein said “certain people” had come to the shelter to persuade the group to leave.

He decided, however, that it was not worth the risk. He said he knew a refugee who had lost everything after he was robbed by someone who had offered to help him escape.

Husein was convinced that the 109 had received outside help because, he said, they could not have done it by themselves.

The group of Burmese refugees was not the first to have taken such a risk and fled the center: The whereabouts of 134 Bangladeshis are still unknown.

Husein said he would be devastated if he and his fellow refugees were sent back to Malaysia, adding that they had been treated like prisoners there.

Husein and Yacub had spent more than 10 years in Malaysia. Both men said that they wanted UNHCR and the government here to ensure their resettlement to another country.

But neither man was focussed on which country was chosen for them to start anew.

What mattered most, they said, was that they be given a place to live where they could be with their families.