Up to 7,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshi Migrants in Limbo at Sea
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Transcript of Up to 7,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshi Migrants in Limbo at Sea
Up to 7,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshi
Migrants in Limbo at Sea
These people are abandoned by smugglers in open waters with no country willing to take them in
Where did they come from?
• The Rohingya exodus from Burma’s coastal Rakhine state, where they are concentrated, surged in the first three months of this year. The number leaving reached 25,000.
The 1 million Rohingya Muslims are being persecuted in Burma, also
known as Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and in
many cases crowded into squalid camps. Rohingya also live in poverty across the
border in Bangladesh.
Fleeing persecution and poverty, they are adrift on rickety boats in the Andaman Sea
and the Straits of Malacca, risking their lives in search of a better life.
The escape route has often involved treacherous dealings
with human traffickers
• Many dangerous smugglers’ boats have been abandoned by their crews, leaving the migrants starving and without water or much protection from the sun.
What’s worse, there is NO COUNTRY taking action to save those lives at first.
Under the spotlight of the international society, several Eastern Asian countries have
reached out their hands to provide humanitarian
assistance to asylum seekers.
However, what’s the best way
for a permanent solution of the Rohingya problem
in the long run?
The issue, no doubt, turns out to be an ASEAN
issue particularly when the refugees have reached the soils of countries
like Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
It must be discussed in ASEAN for a
regional solution to be found out in cooperation with other affected countries
and international community.
Meanwhile, U.N. should intervene in the matter, on
ground of humanitarianism.
Human rights are universal and Burma should not be allowed to call it her domestic affairs, so
LET THE WORLD IN to bring something different.