Boats with 600 Rohingya and Bangladeshis land in Indonesia

Boats carrying nearly 600 Bangladeshis and long-persecuted Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar washed to shore in western Indonesia, some after captains and smugglers abandoned the ships, leaving passengers to fend for themselves, survivors and migrant experts said. Thousands more are believed to be stranded at sea. When the four ships neared shore early Sunday, some passengers jumped into the water and swam. They have been taken to a sports stadium in Lhoksukon, the capital of North Aceh District to be cared for and questioned.

We had nothing to eat. All we could do was pray.

Rashid Ahmed, a 43-year-old Rohingya man who was on one of the boats

The Rohingya have for decades suffered from state-sanctioned discrimination in Myanmar and are denied citizenship. Attacks on the religious minority by Buddhist mobs in the last three years have sparked one of the biggest exoduses of boat people since the Vietnam War, sending 100,000 people fleeing, according to Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, which has monitored the movements of Rohingya for more than a decade. An estimated 7,000 to 8,000 people are now being held in large and small ships in the Malacca Strait and nearby international waters, she said, adding that crackdowns on trafficking syndicates in Thailand and Malaysia have prevented brokers from bringing them to shore.

Asia-Pacific rohingya