YANGON: Myanmar has repatriated nearly 10,000 migrants from Malaysia this year, state media said on Monday, a day after a flotilla returning almost 1,500 of its citizens docked in the country.

A group of 1,476 returnees arrived by ship outside Yangon on Sunday, the first of 5,000 that Kuala Lumpur says Myanmar agreed to take back.

Rights monitors have raised concerns that members of the Rohingya minority may be sent back to Myanmar, where they have faced violent persecution.

Myanmar revealed on Monday that a parallel and larger repatriation push has also been taking place by plane.

Between January and August this year, "8,041 citizens were repatriated by air", state newspaper The Global New Light of Myanmar said.