Meeting on migrants crisis

About 2 500 still stranded on boats in Bay of Bengal, says UN

MORE than 2 500 migrants could still be stranded on boats in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, according to estimates by the UN, as Thailand prepares to host a regional meeting it said was focused on “immediate action” to tackle the crisis.

Thousands of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and migrants from Bangladesh have tried to land in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia since a Thai crackdown early this month led to trafficker crews abandoning them at sea.

Regional governments have struggled to respond, although images of desperate people crammed aboard overloaded boats with little food or water prompted Indonesia and Malaysia to finally allow the migrants to come ashore.

More than seven boats carrying about 2 600 people are thought still to be at sea, according to data from the UN- HCR and International Organisation for Migration sources.

Tomorrow’s meeting in Bangkok will bring together 17 countries from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and elsewhere in Asia, along with the US, Switzerland and international organisations.

“The meeting focuses on immediate actions to tackle the issue,” Panote Preechyanud, of the Thai Department of Information, said yesterday.

“It is an urgent call for the region to comprehensively work together to address the unprecedented increase of irregular migration across the Bay of Bengal in recent years.”

The gathering takes place against the grim backdrop of Malaysia’s discovery of 140 shallow graves at 28 suspected people-smuggling camps along its northern border.

Yesterday, Malaysia said it had detained 12 policemen for suspected links to the trafficking gangs.

Thailand, under pressure from the US to do more to combat people smuggling, began its crackdown after finding at least 36 bodies in similar graves just across the border.

That made it too risky for smugglers to bring their human cargo ashore.

Since then, more than 3 000 migrants left to fend for themselves have landed in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Southern Thailand and northern Malaysia are part of a well-trodden route for people smugglers transporting Rohingya Muslims, who say they are fleeing persecution in Myanmar, and Bangladeshis escaping poverty at home.

The UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, cautioned that its figures for those still risking sickness and starvation at sea were rough estimates.

Malaysia, which says it has already taken 120 000 illegal immigrants from Myanmar, and Indonesia, said last week they would give temporary shelter to migrants already at sea, but the international community must resettle them.

Thailand has refused to allow the boats to land, saying it is already sheltering 100 000 migrants from Myanmar, but has deployed a naval task force to offer medical aid at sea.

The US has said the deadly pattern of migration across the Bay of Bengal will continue until Myanmar ends discrimination against the Rohingya, a minority of 1.1 million people who live in apartheid-like conditions, mostly in the state of Rakhine. – Reuters