Over 370 migrants taken to Indonesia after months at sea

More than 370 migrants stranded at sea for months were rescued and taken to Indonesia, officials said Wednesday, the latest in a stream of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants to reach shore in a growing crisis confronting Southeast Asia. The boat was crammed with 102 people, including 26 women and 31 children. Another 272 migrants arrived on eight Indonesian fishing boats on Wednesday morning.

They were suffering dehydration, they are weak and starving.

Khairul Nove, head of Langsa Search and Rescue Agency in Indonesia’s eastern Aceh province

The rescue came just hours after Indonesia’s foreign minister said late Tuesday the country had “given more than it should” to help hundreds of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants stranded on boats by human traffickers. The foreign minister, Retno Marsudi, was meeting Wednesday with his counterparts from Malaysia and Thailand in an emergency meeting called to discuss how to solve the migrant problem. Representatives from the U.N. refugee agency and the International Office for Migration were also expected to attend the meeting. The crisis emerged this month as governments in the region began cracking down on human trafficking. Some captains of trafficking boats abandoned their vessels — and hundreds of migrants — at sea. About 3,000 of the migrants have reached land in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, but all three countries have pushed some ships away.

Rohingya Asia-Pacific