Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has ordered Royal Malaysian Navy and Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) to conduct search and rescue efforts for boats carrying Rohingya migrants, and to bring them ashore.
Prime Minister Razak has also instructed the Navy and MMEA to assist a volunteer relief organization Mercy Malaysia to deliver humanitarian assistance to the Rohingyan refugees either by sea or land.
The decision comes one day after Indonesia and Malaysia agreed to allow access to boat migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar. The countries will offer temporary shelter and assistance to around 7,000 migrants still believed to be adrift at sea, providing that the international community repatriates and resettles the migrants within a year, as well as provides financial assistance.
The migrants stranded on smugglers’ boats in the Andaman Sea and Straits of Malacca are believed to have been abandoned by their crews amid Thai government’s crackdowns against traffickers, following a discovery of mass graves believed to hold bodies of migrants. Some migrants have been stranded at sea for the last four months.
World Maritime News Staff; Image: UNHCR