Bangkok---In recent days nearly 3,000 boat people from Myanmar and Bangladesh have been rescued or swum to shore in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
Several thousand more are believed to remain trapped on boats at sea with little food or water in a crisis sparked by smugglers abandoning their human cargo that is believed to follow a Thai crackdown on the trade.
The UN refugee agency believes an estimated 25,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshis have taken to boats in the first three months of this year -- double the number over the same period in 2014.
The following is a regional summary of the current "boat people" crisis:
- Malaysia -
More than 1,100 migrants have washed ashore in Malaysia over the past week after people-smuggling gangs dumped migrants in shallow waters off the coast of the resort island of Langkawi.
Some migrants swam to shore after harrowing month-long journeys at sea, crammed in with hundreds of other people and few supplies.
Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak has joined Thailand in calling on Myanmar -- where many boats carrying migrants from the persecuted Rohingya minority originate -- to help address the burgeoning "humanitarian catastrophe".
Myanmar has so far refused to acknowledge its role in the crisis.
- Indonesia -
Around 1,500 migrants have been intercepted by Indonesian authorities or plucked from the sea -- many in a desperate condition.
On Friday around 900 Bangladeshis and Rohingya migrants were rescued from the sea after their boat sank off the east coast of Sumatra.
Survivors told of people being thrown overboard in fighting over dwindling food supplies. Some of the Bangladeshis on board said they had been kidnapped and taken to sea.
Last Sunday Indonesian authorities intercepted a boat off the coast of northwestern Aceh province rescuing more than 600 migrants.
A second vessel carrying about 400 migrants was spotted the following day by Indonesian navy vessels. The boat was damaged but afloat and its captain had fled.
Indonesia's navy provided the boat with fuel and then towed it out of their waters, declining to say if it was heading to Malaysia, its suspected destination.
AFP
