Myanmar lands 700 migrants, US says Rohingya should be citizens

Myanmar brought ashore more than 700 "boat people" it had kept at sea for days aboard a seized vessel, as the United States on June 3 called on the country to help solve a migrant crisis by recognising the rights of its Muslim Rohingya minority. 

US President Barack Obama has sought to make Myanmar's transition to democracy a legacy of his presidency, and Washington is stepping up pressure on the Southeast Asian nation to tackle what it sees as the root causes of an exodus of migrants across the Bay of Bengal that the region has struggled to cope with. 

The 727 migrants were found drifting in the Andaman Sea on May 29 in an overloaded fishing boat that was taking on water. Myanmar's navy brought the vessel to the coast of western Rakhine state, where they disembarked on June 3. 

Scores of migrant men were sat on the ground at the landing spot near the town of Maungdaw, close to the border with Bangladesh, a Reuters witness said. 

Others assembled inside a warehouse, and all were being watched over by dozens of police, the witness said. There were no aid personnel yet at the site, he added. 

Many of the more than 4,000 migrants who have landed in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar since the Thai government launched a crackdown on people-smuggling gangs are Rohingya who say they are escaping persecution. 

It was not immediately clear where the people on the boat were from. Myanmar authorities have said they believe most are Bangladeshis. 

Myanmar officials had said last month that another migrant boat found at sea with more than 200 people on board was mostly filled with economic migrants from Bangladesh. But interviews by Reuters found more than 150 Rohingya had earlier been on the same boat, but...