More than 800 land in Indonesia, Thailand in growing crisis

More than 800 migrants have landed on the shores of Indonesia and Thailand after being adrift at sea for weeks, authorities said today.
They are among the few who have successfully sneaked past a wall of resistance mounted by Southeast Asian countries who have made it clear the boat people are not welcome.
Several thousand refugees from Bangladesh and Myanmar fleeing either poverty or persecution are believed to be adrift on boats in the Andaman Sea in what has become a spiraling humanitarian crisis.
In recent days, about 2,000 landed in Malaysia and Indonesia, but both countries then said they could not accept any more.

Fisherman, however, towed two boats to Indonesia's eastern Aceh province early Friday one with nearly 700 people and another carrying 47, police said.
The larger boat was on the verge of sinking when fisherman brought it to the fishing village of Lagsa, according to Lot. Col Sunarya, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. He said everyone aboard was weak from hunger and dehydrated.

"Some of the people told police they were abandoned at sea for days and Malaysian authorities had already turned their boat away," Sunarya said.
About 25 kilometers (15 miles) south of Langsa, fisherman rescued the smaller boat carrying 47 Rohingya migrants, also dehydrated and hungry, said Aceh Tamiang police chief Dicky Sandoni. They were brought to a beach at Kuala Seruway village in Aceh's Tamiang district.

Separately, the Thai Navy found a group of 106 people, mostly men but including 15 women and two children, on a small island off the coast of Phang Nga province, an area known for its world-class scuba diving.
"It's not clear how they ended up on the island," said Prayoon Rattanasenee, the Phang Nga provincial governor. The group said they were Rohingya migrants from Myanmar. "We are in the process of identifying if they were victims of human trafficking."
The plight of Myanmar's 1.3 million Rohingya has worsened recently and in the last three years more than 120,000 members of the Muslim minority, who are intensely persecuted in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, have boarded ships to flee to other countries, paying huge sums to human traffickers.