Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia and Indonesia said they would offer shelter to 7,000 "boat people" adrift at sea in rickety boats but, anxious not to encourage a fresh influx, made clear that their assistance was temporary and they would take no more.
More than 3,000 migrants have landed so far this month in Malaysia and Indonesia. Together with Thailand, they have opted for a "not-in-my-backyard" policy in response, pushing away many boats that approached their shores despite appeals from the United Nations to take them in.
While the latest statement signalled a shift in policy by Malaysia and Indonesia that would allow the migrants to come ashore, they underlined that the international community also had a responsibility to help them deal with the crisis.
The migrants are Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and Bangladeshis - men, women and children who fled persecution and poverty at home or were abducted by traffickers, and now face sickness and starvation at sea.
"What we have clearly stated is that we will take in only those people in the high sea," Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said. "But under no circumstances would we be expected to take each one of them if there is an influx of others."
Malaysia and Indonesia said in a joint statement in Kuala Lumpur that they would offer "resettlement and repatriation", a process that would be "done in a year by the international community".
The United Nations, which has been calling on governments in the region to rescue those drifting at sea, welcomed the move and urged that people be brought to shore "without delay".
Thailand opts out
A man said temporary shelters would be set up, but not in Thailand, a favoured transit point for the migrants who try to make their way to work illegally in Malaysia. Thai officials have said authorities will check on migrants at sea and will allow the sick to come to shore for medical attention, but the government has stopped short of saying whether it would allow other migrants to disembark.
Thailand, whose foreign minister also attended the meeting in the Malaysian capital, has called a regional conference on the issue in Bangkok for May 29. “We maintain our stance that we are a transit country. In the meeting we said that our country has more problems than theirs," Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said.
"On whether we will accept or not accept (more) migrants you have to wait until May 29 when various organisations and countries will meet," he told reporters in Bangkok.
Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch welcomed the joint statement, which he said "should mark the end of the region's push back policies against Rohingya and Bangladeshi boat people", but added it was "disturbing" that "Thailand was missing in action".
Hours before the ministers met to discuss a crisis on which the confrontation-shy Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) has barely commented, hundreds of Rohingya and Bangladeshi landed in Indonesia's Aceh province
