South-East Asian migrant crisis: The boats and the numbers

Photo: Rohingya migrants are pictured on a boat off the southern Thai island of Koh Lipe in the Andaman Sea. (AFP: Christophe Archambault)

 

 

 

South-East Asian migrant crisis: The boats and the numbers

 

In recent days nearly 3,000 boat people from Myanmar and Bangladesh have been rescued or swum to shore in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

 

Several thousand more are believed to remain trapped on boats at sea with little food or water in a crisis sparked by smugglers abandoning their human cargo that is believed to follow a Thai crackdown on the trade.

 

The UN refugee agency believes an estimated 25,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshis have taken to boats in the first three months of this year — double the number over the same period in 2014.

 

The following is a regional summary of the current "boat people" crisis:

 

Malaysia

 

More than 1,100 migrants washed ashore in Malaysia recently after people-smuggling gangs dumped migrants in shallow waters off the coast of the resort island of Langkawi.

 

Some migrants swam to shore after harrowing month-long journeys at sea, crammed in with hundreds of other people and few supplies.

 

Malaysia has acknowledged it has turned around boats, with deputy home minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar saying: "We are sending them the right signal, to send them to where they came from."

 

Malaysia's prime minister Najib Razak has joined Thailand in calling on Myanmar — where many boats carrying migrants from the persecuted Rohingya minority originate — to help address the burgeoning "humanitarian catastrophe".

Photo: Rohinyga and Bangladeshi refugees are transferred to the mainland after landing at Pantai Pasir Berdengung beach in Langkawi. (Reuters: Olivia Harris)



Indonesia

 

About 1,500 migrants have been intercepted by Indonesian authorities or plucked from the sea — many in a desperate condition.

 

On May 14, 677 migrants and refugees were brought ashore by Indonesian fisherman from Aceh province.

 

The survivors claim up to 200 people died on the journey — 14, including seven children, before the boat was turned around by both the Indonesian and Malaysian navies.

 

Another 200 migrants were pulled from Indonesian waters on May 15.

 

Photo: Migrants and refugees receive treatment at a makeshift medical centre in Indonesia's Aceh province. (ABC News: George Roberts)

 

Thailand

 

On May 15, about 100 migrants from a separate boat made it to land in southern Thailand.

 

Since May 1 some 250 migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar have been found in jungle camps in the southern Thai province of Songkhla, bordering Malaysia.

 

Bay of Bengal

 

Coastal towns along Bangladesh's Cox's Bazaar district and Myanmar's Rakhine State are the starting point for most migrant journeys.

 

A trawler with 116 Malaysia-bound migrants was found adrift off a small island, near the Myanmar border.

 

Small vessels carry migrants out to larger "cargo" boats moored in international waters, which head towards South-East Asia when full.

 

Chris Lewa of Arakan Project, a group advocating for the rights of Rohingya, said her contacts had told her five cargo vessels left in early May headed east.

 

"These boats usually carry between 250-800 people. So there could be at least another 1,000 on their way," she said.

 

Two remain moored in the Bay of Bengal but are not thought to be taking on any more people at the moment, she added.

 

Police have killed several key players in the trade, while dozens of lower level people smugglers have been rounded up.

 

Photo: Muslim Rohingya people shelter under a tent at Mayebon Internally Displaced Persons camp in Myanmar's Rakhine state in 2012. (AFP: Soe Than Win)

 

ABC/AFP