Over 430 migrants taken to Indonesia after months at sea

A flotilla of Indonesian fishermen rescued more than 430 migrants who were stranded at sea and brought them ashore to safety today, the latest victims of a humanitarian crisis confronting Southeast Asia.

Hoping to find a solution, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia held an emergency meeting to address the plight of the migrants who are fleeing persecution in Myanmar and poverty in Bangladesh.

The migrants were rescued early today by more than a dozen fishermen's boats, said Herman Sulaiman, from East Aceh district's Search and Rescue Agency.

It was unclear if the migrants were on one boat or had come from several. An initial batch of 102 people were the first brought to shore in the village of Simpang Tiga in Indonesia's eastern Aceh province, Sulaiman and other rescuers said.
 

"They were suffering from dehydration, they are weak and starving," Khairul Nove, head of Langsa Search and Rescue Agency in Aceh province. Among the 102 passengers were 26 women and 31 children, he said.

One of the migrants, Ubaydul Haque, 30, said the ship's engine had failed and the captain fled, and that they were at sea for four months before Indonesian fishermen found them. "We ran out of food, we wanted to enter Malaysia but we were not allowed," he said.

One of the fishermen who led the rescue was 40-year-old Razali Puteh. He said he spotted a green wooden trawler crammed with people who were screaming, waving their hands and clothes at him to get his attention.

As he neared the trawler, people aboard began jumping into the water, trying to reach his boat. He said he asked them to stay on their boat, which apparently had no motor, and promised to return with help. He then returned with other fishing boats and brought the migrants to shore.

The rescue came after Indonesia's foreign minister, Retno Marsudi, said late yesterday that the country had "given more than it should" to help hundreds of Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi migrants stranded on boats by human traffickers.

Marsudi met today with her counterparts from Malaysia and Thailand in an emergency meeting in Kuala Lumpur called to discuss how to solve the migrant problem. Representatives from the UN refugee agency and the International Office for Migration were also expected to attend the meeting.