Deaths feared at sea over refugee impasse

Malaysia has defied internat­ional pressure and turned away more than 800 boatpeople, raising fears of mass deaths at sea.

A boat carrying Rohingya migrants is pictured off the coast of Thailand in the Andaman Sea on May 14, 2015. The boat crammed with scores of Rohingya migrants -- including many young children -- was found drifting in Thai waters on May 14, according to an AFP reporter at the scene, with passengers saying several people had died over the last few days. Dozens of visibly weak-looking people were on the deck of the stricken vessel, which was found apparently adrift several kilometres off the southern Thai island of Koh Lipe, in the Andaman Sea. AFP PHOTO / THANAPORN PROMYAMYAI

Malaysia has defied internat­ional pressure and turned away more than 800 boatpeople, leading relief agencies to fear mass deaths at sea are a matter of days away if the impasse continues.

Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Jaafar confirmed a boat carrying about 500 people found near Penang Island on Wednesday evening was sent back into international waters.

“We have been very nice to the people who broke into our border,” he told Associated Press. “We have treated them humanely, but they cannot be flooding our shores like this.”

Malaysia is sheltering some 152,000 refugees and asylum- seekers, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, including 47,500 Rohin­gyas and other Muslims from Myanmar.

Malaysian officials said that another boat carrying about 300 Myanmarese Rohingya and Bangladeshis was turned around overnight on Wednesday near Langkawi, the resort island where more than 1000 came ashore a week ago.

Canberra broke its silence on the emergency yesterday, with Attorney-General George Brandis telling the Senate the government had “not been approached directly for assistance” by Indonesia, Malaysia, the UNHCR or the International Organisation for Migration.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had raised the matter during her Thailand visit last week.

Senator Brandis said: “We are keeping the matter under review with an alert eye to further opp­ortunities to be of assistance.”

He did not say what form that assistance might take.

Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, which towed away a boat carrying more than 400 on Monday, have so far turned a deaf ear to UNHCR calls for a co-ordinated search and rescue in the Andaman Sea and Mal­acca Strait, where 6000 to 8000 are estimated to be stranded.

A Thai crackdown on people trafficking across the Bay of Bengal triggered the crisis on May 1, but phone calls from boats and interviews with passengers who landed last weekend indicate many have been at sea for between 20 and 30 days. Those 1600 people who got ashore on Langkawi and Indonesia’s Aceh coast had had no food or fresh water for several days before.

Phone callers from two boats, presumed to be in the Andaman Sea off Thailand, said on Wednesday that passengers had gone days without food and water.

There had been more than 20 deaths on one boat, a teenage boy said by mobile phone.

Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, which advocates for persecuted Rohingya from Myanmar’s Rakhine State, said the other boat carrying 350 people also reported “many deaths”.

Several relief agency officials said yesterday that it was at least likely the boat turned away from Penang was the same vessel the Indonesian Navy towed away from Aceh, in which case there was cause for deep worry about the passengers. They were fed and watered by the Indonesian Navy and Malaysian coast guard, but an Indonesian military spokesman described their condition as “concerning” and a Malaysian official said on Wednesday that they were “desperate”.

“Every day waiting for search and rescue to happen, the risks of people dying are increasing,” said Vivian Tan, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR regional office in Bangkok yesterday.

Even before the current emergency, an IOM study of people trafficked across the Bay of Bengal to Thailand showed 6 per cent were near-death, with beri-beri or acute malnutrition.

Beri-beri can cause death within days unless treated with high doses of vitamin B1, and IOM’s Thailand regional headquarters is now stockpiling doses for when cases start coming ashore in large numbers.

State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said the US was supporting the efforts of the UNHCR and IOM and was “committed to working with governments in the region who are dealing with the brunt of this burden”.

One possible bright spot in the increasingly bleak picture was reports that Thailand’s Navy is actively searching the Andaman coastal waters for boats in trouble.

Rear Admiral Kan Deeubol appeared to contradict the military government spokesman, saying: “For human rights reasons, we will not send them back to sea.”

The government’s spokesman said on Wednesday night that “Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have decided not to receive boatpeople, as far as I am aware”.

Ms Tan said that UNHCR was yesterday still trying to establish which was Thailand’s operational policy. Jakarta’s Foreign Ministry, denying Indonesia has a turn-back policy, has also been at cross-purposes with TNI, the military command, which says it does.

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has called an inter­national conference for May 29, inviting the main protagonists in the region — apart from Myanmar, which refuses to discuss the Rohingya problem internationally — and the US and Australia. A spokesperson for Ms Bishop said Australia would be represented by ambassador for people-smuggling issues Andrew Goledzinowski.