Indonesia, Malaysia offer temporary shelter to thousands of migrants stranded at sea
Temporary shelters to be set up in both countries, but not in Thailand, a favoured transit point for the migrants
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 20 May, 2015, 2:18pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 20 May, 2015, 6:45pm
Reuters in Kuala Lumpur
An Acehnese fisherman helps to carry a young boy as boats full of rescued migrants arrive in Simpang Tiga, Aceh province, Indonesia. Photo: AP
Malaysia and Indonesia said on Wednesday they would offer shelter to 7,000 “boat people” adrift at sea in rickety boats but, anxious not to encourage a fresh influx, made clear that their assistance was temporary and they would take no more.
More than 3,000 migrants have landed so far this month in Malaysia and Indonesia. Together with Thailand, they have opted for a “not-in-my-backyard” policy in response, pushing away many boats that approached their shores despite appeals from the United Nations to take them in.
While the latest statement signalled a shift in policy by Malaysia and Indonesia that would allow the migrants to come ashore, they underlined that the international community also had a responsibility to help them deal with the crisis.
The migrants are Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and Bangladeshis - men, women and children who fled persecution and poverty at home or were abducted by traffickers, and now face sickness and starvation at sea.
“What we have clearly stated is that we will take in only those people in the high sea,” Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said. “But under no circumstances would we be expected to take each one of them if there is an influx of others.”
Malaysia and Indonesia said in a joint statement in Kuala Lumpur that they would offer “resettlement and repatriation”, a process that would be “done in a year by the international community”.
Aman said temporary shelters would be set up, but not in Thailand, a favoured transit point for the migrants who try to make their way to work illegally in Malaysia.
Thai officials have said authorities will check on migrants at sea and will allow the sick to come to shore for medical attention, but the government has stopped short of saying whether it would allow other migrants to disembark.
The foreign ministers of Indonesia, Retno Marsudi (left); Thailand, Tanasak Patimapragorn (centre); and Malaysia, Anifah Aman (right), attend the meeting on human trafficking and people smuggling in Putrajaya, Malaysia. Photo: EPA
Thailand, whose foreign minister also attended the meeting in the Malaysian capital, has called a regional conference on the issue in Bangkok for May 29.
“We maintain our stance that we are a transit country. In the meeting we said that our country has more problems than theirs,” Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said.
“On whether we will accept or not accept [more] migrants you have to wait until May 29 when various organisations and countries will meet,” he told reporters in Bangkok.
Hours before the ministers met to discuss a crisis on which the confrontation-shy Association of Southeast Asia Nations (Asean) has barely commented, hundreds of Rohingya and Bangladeshi landed in Indonesia’s Aceh province.
“We have to find ways to resettling them as soon as possible without creating a new moral hazard,” Dewi Fortuna Anwar, political adviser to Indonesia’s vice president, told reporters in Jakarta.
“If migrants start thinking of Indonesia as a transit point or as having a higher chance of getting resettled, that would create another problem that we have to prevent.”
She said the main responsibility lay with Myanmar, which the United Nations said last week must end discrimination of Rohingya Muslims to end a pattern of migration from the corner of the Bay of Bengal into the Andaman Sea and Malacca Strait.
Most of Myanmar’s 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims are stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions. Almost 140,000 were displaced in clashes with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in 2012.
Myanmar terms the Rohingya “Bengalis”, a name most Rohingya reject because it implies they are immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh despite having lived in Myanmar for generations.
“We have a big desire to help but this is not just Indonesia’s responsibility. This is mainly the responsibility of the Myanmar government which should be protecting all its citizens and not forcing some of them to flee,” Anwar said.
Myanmar’s foreign ministry said in a statement published by state media on Wednesday that the government was making “serious efforts” to prevent people smuggling and illegal migration.
This included patrolling by the navy and air force in Myanmar’s territorial waters, it said, adding that Myanmar was prepared to work with the international community to alleviate the suffering of smuggled victims.
