Thousands of migrants stranded at sea get partial respite

Indonesia and Malaysia will give temporary shelter to migrants until they are resettled

Indonesia and Malaysia agreed yesterday to take in thousands of migrants stranded at sea until they can be sent home or resettled in a third country, in the first official action by southeast Asian nations to try to resolve a crisis well into its second week.

Responding to international pressure to save the migrants, many of whom have been adrift in rickety boats for weeks with little food or water, the agreement by Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand was a potential lifesaver even as experts said it offered only a temporary fix to deeper problems.

It reverses the previous position of those governments, whose navies had been pushing boatloads of desperate migrants from Bangladesh and Burma (Myanmar) away from their shores in what international aid groups characterised as a dangerous game of human ping-pong.

"It's extremely welcome news," said Joe Lowry, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration in Bangkok. "It's the right thing to do. They should get the helicopters and planes and boats out there to look for these people."

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Underlying problems

But in a sign of the underlying problems that remained, the migrants’ home countries, Bangladesh and Burma, did not participate in the talks in Malaysia. And Thailand, which has been a way station for the migrants and until recently a haven for traffickers, did not agree to take in any migrants.

The agreement came as fishermen on the Indonesian island of Sumatra rescued at least 370 migrants from sinking ships and brought them ashore. They included passengers from a boat that was spotted by journalists adrift in the Andaman Sea near Thailand and Malaysia last Thursday.

An estimated 7,000 to 8,000 migrants are still at sea, many of them abandoned by traffickers after a recent crackdown by Thailand on human smuggling. An additional 3,500 migrants – mainly Bangladeshis seeking jobs and ethnic Rohingya fleeing persecution in Burma – have landed in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, or been rescued offshore, since May 10th. Many of them are women and young children.

Temporary shelter

In the agreement announced yesterday, Indonesia and Malaysia said they would “provide humanitarian assistance to those 7,000 irregular migrants still at sea”. They also agreed “to offer them temporary shelter provided that the resettlement and repatriation process will be done in one year by the international community”.

The statement called on the international community to “share the burden” by providing financial support. While the details have not been worked out, Mr Lowry called on regional governments and commercial shipping companies to help pinpoint the locations of migrant boats and provide them directions to landing points in Malaysia and Indonesia, or rescue them if necessary.

The UN high commissioner for refugees called the agreement “an important initial step” and “vital” for saving lives, but said further action was required to address the root causes of the crisis.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya, a stateless Muslim ethnic group that lives primarily in Rakhine State in western Burma, have fled the country during the last several years. The Burmese government does not recognise the Rohingya as citizens. – (New York Times service)