Asian nations urged to step up migrant rescues

GENEVA: UN agencies urged Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand yesterday to step up sea rescue operations and stop preventing thousands of desperate migrants from reaching land.

An estimated 4 000 men, women and children from Myanmar and Bangladesh are adrift in boats with dwindling supplies, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said. Half of them have been stranded on at least five vessels near the Myanmar-Bangladesh coast for more than 40 days, it said.

In a joint statement, joined by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the heads of the UNHCR and UN human rights office called on the three countries to stop trying to push boats away from their territorial waters.

Authorities should “provide for effective, predictable disembarkation to a place of safety with adequate and humane reception conditions”, and establish screening procedures to identify those in need of international protection as refugees, they added.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said last week the flow of migrants would continue until Myanmar ended discrimination against its Rohingya Muslim minority.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon also called on South-East Asian countries to fulfil their duty to rescue people in distress at sea, saying he was deeply alarmed by the deaths of migrants when states failed to save them.

“Countries must uphold the obligation of rescue at sea and maintain the prohibition against refoulement,” Ban said.

Refoulement is the expulsion of refugees. A migrant boat pushed back out to sea by South-East Asian nations at the weekend has not been heard from for two days, raising concerns about the fate of 300 people on board, rights groups said on Monday.