Abandoned by smugglers, thousands of migrants adrift off the coasts of Southeast Asia have nowhere to go after Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand are unwilling to accept the boatpeople despite UN’s request to rescue them.
8,000 migrants are estimated to be at sea in south-east Asia with about 1,000 rescued by Indonesia.
Both the UN and the International Organisation for Migration have called the regional governments to prevent a massive humanitarian disaster by saving lives.
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that he was “alarmed by reports that some countries may be refusing entry to boats carrying refugees and migrants”.
Many of those on boat are Rohingya, a stateless people described by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, who don’t have citizenship rights in Burma.
The boats are also filled with Bangladeshis fleeing poverty and seeking better life abroad.
For years, the regional countries have turned blind eye to the discrimination of about 1.3 million Rohingya in Burma’s western state of Rakhine, whom Burma insists are illegal settlers from Bangladesh and have no right to citizenship although they are widely believed to be indigenous.
An estimated 25,000 Bangladeshis and Rohingya boarded smugglers' boats in the first quarter of this year, twice as many in the same period of 2014, the UNHCR has said.
Facing violence and persecution, an estimated 120,000 Rohingya have attempted to flee Burma since 2012 through human trafficker networks.
It is believed the current situation is the result of land-to-sea transition after Thailand intensified crackdown on people-smuggling networks along the Thai-Malaysia border, a traditional route for the Rohingya, after the discovery of several mass graves in April.
Thailand is convening a regional conference to discuss the root cause of the problem later this month, but Burma says it "is unlikely " to attend.
In fact, all countries in the region, even Australia have been flooded with migrants over the past years, leaving their capacity and budget overstrained and domestic pressure increased since the boatpeople issue has remained unsolved for too long.
The chronic situation has swollen more and more because there has been no noticeable improvement in the countries of origin to reduce the escape attempts, or allow repatriation of those who are not refugees and reduce the burden on the receiving countries.
Therefore, the regional governments fear and argue more people will attempt the dangerous journey and people smugglers will get more customers if they accept the migrants adrift.
Finding a permanent solution is extremely complex, given the causes of the problem, geopolitical situation in the region, the difficulty of effectively disabling people-smuggling networks and their boats.
However, measures to make sure migrants don’t start the journey will not lead to a long term solution unless they include improvement in the countries of origin to make sure the migrants don’t have to start the rickety journey in the first place.
At this stage, however, there is no time to lose and wait until a regional long-term approach is adopted since thousands of people are on the high and rough seas without food, fuel and hope.
How about a temporary solution?
The temporary solution to the current crisis to do what is humane at the moment – save all the boatpeople. They are people.
