3 SE Asia nations to meet amid migrant crisis

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia said on Monday that its foreign minister would meet his Thai and Indonesian counterparts in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday to discuss ways to tackle human trafficking, after thousands of desperate asylum seekers arrived on its shores in the past week.

Southeast Asian governments have so far shown little sign of a co-ordinated response to the boatloads of Bangladeshi migrants and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar arriving in their waters.

Some 2,500 migrants have landed in Malaysia and Indonesia over the past week, while around 5,000 remain stranded at sea in rickety boats with dwindling supplies of food and water.

Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand have turned back or towed overcrowded migrant boats away from their coastlines, in what the International Organisation for Migration has described as "maritime ping-pong with human lives."

A meeting of Malaysian and Indonesian foreign ministers scheduled for Monday was put back until Wednesday to allow the Thai foreign minister to attend, a Malaysian foreign ministry official said. Talks would focus on human trafficking and people smuggling in the region.

Seven Bangladeshi nationals were rescued on Monday off the Myanmar coast after they were thrown from a fishing trawler packed with migrants heading to Malaysia, a coast guard officer said.

Dickson Chowdhury said the seven men had been pulled from the Bay of Bengal by fishermen from Myanmar and handed over to local Bangladeshi fishermen.

"A Thai fishing trawler threw them into the Bay of Bengal. A Myanmar boat rescued them and handed [them] over to a Bangladeshi fishing boat. They are now under our custody," said Chowdhury, the station commander.

He said the seven had told coast guard officers there were three boats in the area packed with migrants from Bangladesh and neighbouring Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority.

"They told us that the three boats were parked eight kilometres south of Myanmar's Sitaparokia coast. In one boat there were 68 people and the two others have more than 100 people each," Chowdhury said.

The claims could not immediately be verified by other government agencies.

But a migrant stuck in one of the ships told private television station Jamuna TV that it was carrying more than 200 Bangladeshis in Myanmar waters.

Agencies

http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/3-se-asia-nations-to-meet-amid-migrant-crisis/