More than 320 Rohingya refugees who fled persecution in Myanmar last year remain detained in Malaysia, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative Richard Towle said today.

“In Malaysia, there were 371 Rohingya refugees, of which just under 40 of them have been resettled to the United States.

“The rest are still in jail (detention centres) in Malaysia. So there are more than 320 people, of whose images are being displayed here, who are still in detention in Malaysia,” Towle told reporters at the Odysseys photographic exhibition at Whitebox, Publika in Kuala Lumpur.

Towle urged the authorities to take action as soon as possible.

“We (UNHCR) think that has to be addressed very quickly. It’s not satisfactory at all that one year later, women and children are still in detention in Malaysia.

“I don’t have the details (of the number of women and children in detention), but there are people who have been victims of terrible atrocities and hardships before they came to Malaysia.

"We need to find solutions to get them out (of detention), to be resettled (for some if we can) and to be placed within a community where we can look after them properly.”

But Towle added that Southeast Asian governments had made positive changes to prepare for a possible repeat of the 2015 Rohingya boat crisis.

“Governments in the regions are trying to put in place the sort of cooperation arrangements to make sure that if this happens again, they are better prepared,” he said.

‘Odysseys: A Photographic Exhibition of Asia and Europe refugees crises by Agence France-Presse (AFP)’ is being held at White Box, Publika between June 7 and June 18.

The photos on display are a heartbreaking display of humanity in peril.