Rohingya refugee crisis

Indonesia and Malaysia agreed May 20 to provide temporary shelter to thousands of migrants stranded at sea, the first breakthrough in the humanitarian crisis confronting Southeast Asia after weeks of reluctance by the region's nations to take responsibility.

The Turkish navy is carrying out efforts to reach Rohingya Muslims stranded in boats off the coast of Thailand and Malaysia, Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu said.

The Philippines said May 19 it was ready to help Rohingya and Bangladeshi boatpeople, as its Southeast Asian neighbours faced outrage for turning them away.

The Indonesian navy prevented a suspected migrant boat from entering the country's waters at the weekend after the arrival of hundreds of Rohingya and Bangladeshis and has stepped up patrols in the area, the military said May 18.

Malaysia said on May 17 that its foreign minister would meet his Indonesian and Thai counterparts to discuss the surge in stricken boatpeople from Bangladesh and Myanmar flooding to Southeast Asia.
 
Foreign Minister Anifah Aman was to meet Indonesia's Retno Marsudi in the Malaysian city of Kota Kinabalu on May 18, a government official said.
 

Nearly 800 "boat people" were brought ashore in Indonesia on May 15 but other vessels crammed with migrants were sent back to sea despite a U.N. call to quickly rescue thousands set adrift in Southeast Asian waters. 

Another 700 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants were rescued off Indonesia on May 15, police said, as Myanmar undermined calls for a coordinated response to the human-trafficking crisis by threatening to boycott a planned Southeast Asian summit.

Four boats carrying some 1,400 Rohingya migrants were rescued off the coasts of Indonesia and Malaysia on May 11, officials said, a day after nearly 600 others arrived in a wooden vessel off Indonesia's Aceh.

Boats carrying about 500 members of Myanmar's long-persecuted Rohingya Muslim community washed to shore in western Indonesia on May 10, with some of the people in need of medical attention, a migration official and a human rights advocate said.
                   

An overloaded fishing boat carrying migrants to Malaysia sank in strong currents off the coast of Bangladesh on Jan 29 and 24 passengers are missing, police said.

Emergency workers rescued 32 Bangladeshis in the Bay of Bengal after the boat capsized some 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) offshore, but others are still unaccounted for, police said.