Desperate migrants facing certain death as their overcrowded boat began sinking fought for space on the stricken vessel, throwing some people overboard before they were plucked to safety today by passing Indonesian fishermen.
After nearly two months at sea, and with supplies running low, survivors told how the situation became desperate as they were pushed between Malaysia and Indonesia, with neither willing to accept the migrants, before finally being rescued off Aceh province.
"Fishermen pulled us one by one from the sea... If there were no fishermen all of us would have died," Muhammad Amin, a 35-year-old Rohingya who was thrown overboard by Bangladeshis, told AFP from a warehouse in Langsa, Aceh, where exhausted survivors were taken.
Those rescued from the boat made up the majority of 800 Muslim minority Rohingya from Myanmar and Bangladeshis saved and brought to shore in Aceh today, just the latest horror story to emerge from a human-trafficking crisis gripping Southeast Asia.
The region is facing mounting calls to address the problem but hopes of finding a coordinated solution look dim with Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand vowing to turn back stricken boats and Myanmar threatening to boycott a planned regional summit on the issue.
However Indonesian authorities' pledge to turn away vessels did not stop local fishermen from going to the rescue of the latest boatload of forlorn migrants -- which included 61 children -- to arrive in the country's waters.
Officials described harrowing scenes on the packed boat, with the vessel half under water by the time it was found off Aceh province late yesterday and children swimming around it.
The migrants were taken to two warehouses near the port in Langsa after being brought ashore early today by six fishing boats, looking exhausted with many wearing just shorts and sarongs, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
