Malaysia, Indonesia to accept boats in breakthrough on migrants

Malaysia and Indonesia said Wednesday they would no longer turn away boatpeople, a  breakthrough in the region's migrant crisis that came just hours after hundreds more starving people were rescued at sea.

Earlier, Myanmar, whose policies toward its ethnic Rohingya minority are widely blamed for fuelling the human flow, also softened its line by offering to provide humanitarian aid to stricken migrants.

Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand had sparked growing international outrage for driving off boats overloaded with exhausted and dying Rohingya, as well as Bangladeshis.
But Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman, in a joint press appearance with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi, announced that "the towing and the shooing (away of boats) is not going to happen" any more.

"We also agreed to offer them temporary shelter provided that the resettlement and repatriation process will be done in one year by the international community," Anifah said.

The pair had met earlier with Thai Foreign Minister Tanasak Patimapragorn.
Thailand, however, refrained from participating in the offer, with Tanasak saying he must check with his government first, according to Anifah.

Nearly 3,000 boatpeople have swum to shore or been rescued off the three countries over the past 10 days after a Thai crackdown on human-trafficking threw the illicit trade into chaos, with some of the syndicates involved abandoning their helpless human cargo at sea.

Anifah said Malaysian intelligence estimates put the number of people still stranded at sea at about 7,000 people.
He said the offer of assistance and shelter was applicable only to those now at sea.

Joe Lowry, a Bangkok-based spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an intergovernmental body, called the announcement "extremely good news".

- Myanmar softens line -

"It is a brave and timely move by Malaysia and Indonesia. They have to get these people ashore. We can help them get them back on their feet and help them resettle to third countries," he told AFP.
In the latest drama involving incoming migrants, 433 starving people were rescued from their rickety boat off Indonesia by local fishing vessels earlier Wednesday, officials and fisherman said.

AFP journalists confirmed it was the same boat that had earlier bounced between Thailand and Malaysia in recent days as images of its emaciated Rohingya passengers -- shot by AFP and other media -- shocked observers worldwide.

"Their condition is very weak. Many are sick, they told me that some of their friends died from starvation," said Teuku Nyak Idrus, a fishermen involved in the rescue.
A local official said 70 children were among those saved  -- including some babies -- and 70 women.

Myanmar state media on Wednesday quoted a foreign ministry statement as saying the government "shares concerns" expressed by the international community and is "ready to provide humanitarian assistance to anyone who suffered in the sea".

That marked the most conciliatory statement yet from Myanmar's Buddhist-dominated government, which considers the Muslim Rohingya to be illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh and had earlier hit back at calls for it to help address the situation.
Rohingya flee western Myanmar by the thousands annually to escape years of violence and discrimination at the hands of the Buddhist majority.

Most head for Muslim-majority Malaysia.

US Assistant Secretary of State Tom Malinowski said Myanmar must make a long-term change to its Rohingya policy.

"They need to be treated as citizens with dignity and with human rights," he told CNN, otherwise Myanmar's relations with the international community would never be "completely right and normal".

The Bangladeshi migrants are largely seeking to escape poverty at home.

The UN's refugee agency believes at least 2,000 migrants may be stranded on boats off the Myanmar-Bangladesh coasts, held in horrific conditions for weeks by traffickers who are demanding that passengers pay to be released, a spokeswoman said.

In a joint statement, Anifah and Marsudi said the "root causes" of the migrant exodus must be addressed but did not single out any country.

They recommended convening an emergency meeting of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which Malaysia chairs  this year. Myanmar also is a member.

They also called on the international community to share the financial burden of sheltering and resettling the migrants.