Malaysia, Indonesia to accept boats in breakthrough on migrants

Malaysia and Indonesia said Wednesday they would no longer turn away boat people, a breakthrough in the region’s migrant crisis that came just hours after hundreds more starving people were rescued at sea. Earlier, Myanmar, whose policies toward its ethnic Rohingya minority are widely blamed for fuelling the human flow, also softened its line by offering to provide humanitarian aid to affected migrants. Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand had sparked growing international outrage by driving off boats overloaded with exhausted and dying Rohingya as well as Bangladeshis.

The towing and the shooing [away of boats] is not going to happen [any more].

Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman

The reversal in the governments’ positions after weeks of saying the migrants were not welcome came as more than 430 weak, hungry people were rescued — not by navies patrolling the waters but by a flotilla of Indonesian fishermen who brought them ashore in the eastern province of Aceh. The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Wednesday’s announcement was “an important initial step in the search for solutions to this issue, and vital for the purpose of saving lives.”

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