|
| An ethnic Rohingya man carries a plastic bag containing his belongings at a temporary shelter in Lapang, Aceh province, Indonesia, Thursday, May 14, 2015. More than 1,600 migrants and refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh have landed on the shores of Malaysia and Indonesia in the past week and thousands more are believed to have been abandoned at sea, floating on boats with little or no food after traffickers literally jumped ship fearing a crackdown. |
LANGKAWI,
Malaysia (AP) -- Rohingya and Bangladeshis abandoned at sea
following a crackdown on human traffickers had nowhere to go Thursday
after Malaysia turned away two wooden boats crammed with hundreds of
hungry people. Thailand, too, made it clear the migrants were not
wanted.
"What do you expect us to do?" asked
Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Jafaar. "We have been very
nice to the people who broke into our border. We have treated them
humanely, but they cannot be flooding our shores like this."
"We have to send the right message," he said, "that they are not welcome here."
Thai Prime Minister Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, meanwhile, said his country couldn't afford to host the refugees.
"If we take them all in, then anyone who wants to come will come freely," he said. "Where will the budget come from?"
He had no suggestions as to where they should go, saying: "No one wants them."
Southeast
Asia for years tried to quietly ignore the plight of Myanmar's 1.3
million Rohingya but finds itself caught in a spiraling humanitarian
crisis that in many ways it helped create. 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.
But
faced with a regional crackdown, some captains and smugglers have
abandoned the ships, leaving an estimated 6,000 refugees to fend for
themselves, according to reliable aid workers and human rights groups.
Around
1,600 have washed to shore in recent days - a thousand on Langkawi, a
resort island in northern Malaysia, and another 600 arriving
surreptitiously in Indonesia.
But nearly just as many have been sent away. And now food and water supplies are running low.
"This
is a grave humanitarian crisis demanding an immediate response," said
Matthew Smith, executive director of nonprofit human rights group
Fortify Rights. "Lives are on the line."
Denied
citizenship by national law, Myanmar's Rohingya are effectively
stateless. They have limited access to education or adequate health care
and cannot move around freely. They have been attacked by the military
and chased from their homes and land by extremist Buddhist mobs in a
country that regards them as illegal settlers.
Despite
appeals by the U.N. and aid groups, no government in the region - Thai,
Indonesian or Malaysian - appears willing to take the refugees, fearing
that accepting a few would result in an unstoppable flow of poor,
uneducated migrants.
U.N. Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon is "alarmed by reports that some countries may be refusing
entry to boats carrying refugees and migrants," a statement from his
office said Thursday. It said Ban urged governments in the region to
"facilitate timely disembarkation and keep their borders and ports open
in order to help the vulnerable people who are in need."
Days
after Malaysia let in a few boats carrying around migrants, Wan Junaidi
announced that a vessel carrying 500 people on a boat found Wednesday
off northern Penang state were given provisions and sent on their way.
Another carrying about 300 migrants was turned away near Langkawi island
overnight, according to two Malaysian officials who declined to be
identified because they weren't authorized to speak to the press.
Indonesia's
navy also sent away a boat carrying 400 people this week, giving them
food, water and directions to Malaysia - the country migrants allegedly
said they were trying to find.
Phil Robertson
of Human Rights Watch Asia accused Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia of
playing "a three-way game of human ping pong."
Though
Thailand has a "help-on policy" - give people provisions and then send
them on their way - its navy got a green light Thursday from Prayuth's
government to rescue a vessel spotted along the Thai-Malaysian maritime
border in Satun province, said Jeffrey Labovitz, the International
Organization for Migration's chief of mission in Bangkok, Thailand.
The
migrants had been begging for help by phone for days, but when sailors
finally arrived, offering to bring them to land, they said they were
fine.
"None of them wanted to go to the Thai
shore," said Maj. Gen. Sansern Kaewkamnerd, deputy government spokesman.
"They said they wanted to travel to a third country."
Chris
Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, said relatives of some of those
on board - including a 16-year-old boy - were crushed to learn their
loved ones were not disembarking.
She said they believe the decision was made by a person who appeared to be controlling everyone on the boat.
