SITTWE, MYANMAR // Malaysia ordered search and rescue missions on Thursday for thousands of boat people stranded at sea, as Myanmar held talks with US and Southeast Asian envoys on the migrant exodus from its shores.
The rescue order, which is the first proactive official move to save the thousands of persecuted Muslim Rohingya and Bangladeshi economic migrants believed to currently be adrift, comes a day after Malaysia and Indonesia said they would end a policy of turning away boats.
“We have to prevent loss of life,” Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak said on his Facebook account, announcing the measure.
Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said his country had not made a similar order but the issue was “something that will be discussed”.
As the migrant crisis unfolded, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand were heavily criticised for refusing to take in boats overloaded with exhausted passengers fleeing poverty or persecution.
But on Wednesday, Malaysia and Indonesia relented, announcing their nations would accept boat people for one year, or until they can be resettled or repatriated with the help of international agencies.
Thailand also took part in Wednesday’s talks in Kuala Lumpur, saying it would no longer pushback boats in its waters but stopping short of signing up fully to the deal.
The policy about-turn was welcomed by the United States, which said it also stood ready to admit some of the migrants.
US deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken was due to raise the plight of the Rohingya in his meeting Thursday afternoon with Myanmar officials, including the president Thein Sein, in Naypyidaw.
Malaysian foreign minister Anifah Aman and his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi Aman were also set to meet Myanmar officials for bilateral talks.
No further details were immediately available on the meetings.
The Rohingya minority flee in droves each year, an exodus that has surged following sectarian violence in 2012 pitting them against local Buddhists in the western state of Rakhine.
News of the diplomatic breakthrough was on Thursday yet to trickle down to the displaced Rohingya lodged in ramshackle camps around the state capital Sittwe.
But with the people-smuggling route to Thailand currently blocked, some Rohingya communities were raising funds to pay off the smugglers and buy back their loved ones stranded on boats at sea awaiting transit south.
“There were 300 people on our boat... we were in real difficulty, they beat the children... they didn’t give us food,” Malar Myaing, 25, a mother-of-five said from the Anuak San Pya camp in state capital Sittwe after securing her family’s release with a $100 payment.
“Thirty-five people came back to Sittwe, there are many people left at sea.”
Tearful mothers holding photographs pleaded for help locate their children who have not made contact since they left on boats weeks ago.
The fate of the Rohingya remains an incendiary issue in Myanmar.
Heading into Thursday’s talks, Myanmar’s government reiterated its refusal to recognise the stateless Rohingya as an ethnic group.
It insists they are illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.
“We do not accept that term (Rohingya) here,” said Zaw Htay, director of the presidential office.
But he confirmed that Myanmar would attend a broader regional summit planned on the crisis in Bangkok on May 29, after the government this week softened its line by offering to provide humanitarian assistance.
Myanmar also said it had began its own search and rescue operations a week ago, even before the UN expressed fears for the safety of some 2,000 people believed to be stranded on boats in its waters.
“We’ve been doing this (search and rescues) for days... since around May 15 or 16,” information minister Ye Htut said, though the claim could not be verified.
Nearly 3,000 migrants have swum to shore or been rescued off the coastlines of the three countries over the past 10 days after a Thai crackdown on human-trafficking threw the illicit trade into chaos.
Some traffickers are believed to have abandoned their human cargo at sea with scant food or water.
Anifah said Malaysian intelligence estimated that about 7,000 people were still adrift in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea.
The US, Philippines and even the west African nation of Gambia have offered assistance or possible resettlement of Rohingya, evoking the coordinated response to the exodus of hundreds of thousands of boat people from Vietnam in the late 1970s.
Hours before Malaysia and Indonesia changed tack, more than 400 starving migrants were rescued from their decrepit boat off Indonesia by local fishing vessels Wednesday.
The boat had bounced between Thailand and Malaysia in recent days, rejected by authorities, as images of its emaciated Rohingya passengers shocked observers worldwide.
* Agence France-Presse
