Myanmar navy escorting 727 stranded migrants to a ‘safe but secret place’

Myanmar’s navy is escorting a boat crammed with 727 stranded migrants to a “safe” location where officials will verify their identities before taking any further action, the country’s information minister said on Tuesday. Correcting an earlier comment that the navy was taking the converted fishing boat to the waters of neighbouring Bangladesh, Ye Htut said the migrants were headed to an undisclosed but safe area and had been provided with food and water.but would not disclose the location due to “security and safety concerns”. The migrants were found drifting in the Andaman Sea on Friday in an overloaded fishing boat that was taking on water.

The operation is starting. They will be taken to a safe destination.

Ye Htut, Government spokesman

They are the among an estimated 2,000 people the United Nations said could still be at sea after being abandoned by people smuggling gangs since a crackdown started last month in Thailand. Myanmar’s government initially labelled the migrants “Bengalis”, a term it applies to both Bangladeshis and Rohingyas, a mostly stateless Muslim minority of about 1.1 million living in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Myanmar’s government refuses to refer to the Rohingyas by name and insists most are illegal Bangladeshi migrants. They live in apartheid-like conditions and are deeply resented by Rakhine’s Buddhist majority.

World Rohingya