Banda Aceh, Indonesia---Hundreds of boatpeople were rescued by local fishermen from their wooden vessel off Indonesia's Aceh province on Wednesday, officials and fishermen said.
Search and rescue officials said that 433 migrants, who were Rohingya from Myanmar, had been rescued off Aceh's coast in the early hours.
A first batch of 102 were brought to shore at 2 am (1900 GMT Tuesday) and taken to a village in East Aceh district, said search and rescue agency official Khairul Nova.
The second batch were brought to a port in East Aceh a few hours later, said another official, Sadikin, who goes by one name.
He said the breakdown of those on board was 70 children and babies, 70 women and 293 men.
Sadikin earlier said that the migrants were rescued from two boats but later clarified it was only one. AFP journalists later boarded the green wooden vessel and confirmed it was the boat that had been missing for several days after earlier being spotted off Thailand.
Sadikin told AFP that fishermen "found the boat bobbing about, the engine was dead, the fishermen felt pity for them.
"Some looked very sick and weak, some looked dehydrated, there seems to be a lack of water and food at sea.
"We are giving first aid to these people, we are feeding them, giving them water and providing a comfortable place for them."
Teuku Nyak Idrus, a local fisherman involved in the rescue, said the migrants' condition was "very weak".
"Many are sick, they told me that some of their friends died from starvation," he told AFP.
He said local people were providing food and water, and medics were treating the sick.
The rescues came as the foreign ministers of Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia were meeting near Kuala Lumpur to discuss Southeast Asia's migrant boat crisis.
Some 1,350 Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar, fleeing persecution, and Bangladeshis, seeking to escape grinding poverty, had already arrived in Aceh in recent days after being abandoned by people smugglers.
They are among several thousand who have made it to land in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand after being dumped by smugglers following the disruption of long-established human-trafficking routes.
AFP
