Malaysia and Indonesia said yesterday they would offer shelter to 7000 “boat people” adrift at sea in rickety boats but, anxious not to encourage a fresh influx, made clear their assistance was temporary and they would take no more.More than 3000 migrants have landed in Malaysia and Indonesia so far this month. 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 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 we will take in only those people on 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 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 said authorities would check on migrants at sea and would 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.
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 our country has more problems than theirs,” Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said.
“On whether we will accept or not accept migrants will be discussed on May 29 when various organisations and countries meet,” he said.
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 Bangladeshis landed in Indonesia’s Aceh province.
“We have to find ways of resettling them as soon as possible without creating a new moral hazard,” Dewi Fortuna Anwar, political adviser to Indonesia’s vice-president, said.
“If migrants start thinking of Indonesia as a transit point or as having a higher chance of getting resettled, that would create another problem .”
She said the main responsibility lay with Myanmar, which the UN said last week must end discrimination of Rohingya Muslims to end a pattern of migration from 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.
Countries offer shelter to ‘boat people’
While the latest statement signalled a shift in policy by Malaysia and Indonesia that would allow the migrants to come ashore, they underlined 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 we will take in only those people on 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 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 said authorities would check on migrants at sea and would 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.
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 our country has more problems than theirs,” Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said.
“On whether we will accept or not accept migrants will be discussed on May 29 when various organisations and countries meet,” he said.
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 Bangladeshis landed in Indonesia’s Aceh province.
“We have to find ways of resettling them as soon as possible without creating a new moral hazard,” Dewi Fortuna Anwar, political adviser to Indonesia’s vice-president, said.
“If migrants start thinking of Indonesia as a transit point or as having a higher chance of getting resettled, that would create another problem .”
She said the main responsibility lay with Myanmar, which the UN said last week must end discrimination of Rohingya Muslims to end a pattern of migration from 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.
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