A crisis involving boatloads of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants stranded at sea deepened today as Malaysia said it would turn away any more of the crowded, wooden vessels unless they were sinking.
Over the past three days, more than 1,000 migrants have landed on the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi known for its swanky hotels and white-sand beaches with another 600 arriving in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh. Many more migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh are believed trapped in packed boats at sea, some after being abandoned by captains and smugglers, activists and officials said.
The waters around Langkawi island will be patrolled 24 hours a day by a total of eight ships, said Tan Kok Kwee, northern regional chief for Malaysia's maritime enforcement agency.
"We won't let any foreign boats come in. If the boats are seaworthy, we will give them provisions and send them away," Tan said. If the boat is sinking, they would rescue them, he said.
Southeast Asia is the grips of a spiraling humanitarian crisis as boats packed with Rohingya and Bangladeshis are being washed ashore, some after being stranded at sea for more than two months. A regional crackdown on human traffickers has essentially spooked agents and brokers, who have refused to take people to shore.
One boat sent out a distress signal today, with migrants saying they had been without food and water for three days, according to Chris Lewa, director of the non-profit Arakan Project, after speaking by phone to some of those on board.
"They asked to be urgently rescued," she said, adding there were an estimated 350 people on the ship, 50 of them women, and that they had no fuel.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the United States, Australia and other governments and international organizations, meanwhile, have held a string of emergency meetings to discuss possible next steps.
They are worried about deaths, but also the looming refugee problem. In the past, most nations have been unwilling to accept Rohingya, a Muslim minority from Myanmar who are effectively stateless. They worry that by opening their doors to a few, they will be unable to stem the flood of poor, uneducated migrants.
"In some ways it's important," Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, said of the unprecedented numbers.
"It sets up the possibility people will finally realize this is a regional issue," he said, "that countries are receiving Rohingya because of Burma's bad policies of discrimination and abuse against members of the religious minority and that they need to band together to demand the government change those policies.
