Five N. Koreans sail across tense border to S. Korea

Yahoo – AFP, July 1, 2017

South Korean ships patrol the disputed waters of the Yellow Sea (AFP Photo/
KIM JAE-HWAN)

Five North Koreans in a small boat crossed the sea border into South Korean waters Saturday, a Coast Guard official said, in an apparent bid to defect to the South.

The five people, including four men and one woman, have expressed their wish to live in the South as defectors, the Yonhap news agency reported.

"Coast guards guided the boat to safety at (the eastern port of) Mukho," a South Korean coast guard official told AFP.

Government authorities were questioning the five North Koreans, he added.

The incident came after a North Korean fishing boat with eight people on board developed an engine trouble and drifted into South Korean waters off the country's eastern coast late last month.

Days later, South Korea repatriated all the eight, as they had requested.

Early last month, two people out of four crew members on another North Korean fishing boat which drifted to the South refused to return home. They were allowed resettle in the South.

There has also been a spate of overland border crossings in June.

Two North Korean soldiers walked across the heavily fortified border and a civilian swam across a river to defect to the South.

Over the decades since the peninsula was divided, dozens of North Korean soldiers have fled to the South through the Demilitarised Zone, which extends for two kilometers either side of the actual border.

A North Korean soldier defected to the South in September last year, and a teenage North Korean soldier defected in June 2015.

In 2012 a North Korean soldier walked unchecked through rows of electrified fencing and surveillance cameras, prompting Seoul to sack three field commanders for a security lapse.

More than 30,000 North Korean civilians have fled their homeland but it is very rare for them to cross the closely guarded inter-Korean border, which is fortified with minefields and barbed wire.

Most flee across the porous frontier with neighbouring China.

Migrant rescuers, island mayor win UNESCO peace prize

Yahoo – AFP, Ella IDE, April 19, 2017

Migrants are rescued off the coast of Libya by SOS Mediterranee's Aquarius
vessel in May 2016 (AFP Photo/GABRIEL BOUYS)

Rome (AFP) - UNESCO awarded its prestigious peace prize on Wednesday to migrant rescue association SOS Mediterranee and the mayor of Lampedusa, the tiny Italian island on the frontline of the refugee crisis.

The Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize goes to the European NGO and mayor Giuseppina Nicolini "for their work to save the lives of refugees and migrants and welcome them with dignity," the UN cultural body said in a statement.

The plight of migrants constitutes "one of the crucial issues of our day, notably in the Mediterranean where nearly 13,000 men, women and children have perished in shipwrecks since 2013," said acting jury head Joaquim Chissano, former president of Mozambique.

Lampedusa, Italy's most southerly outpost, was the first port of arrival for thousands of migrants setting off from North Africa in the first years of the crisis, which began in 2011 and has developed into the worst since World War II.

SOS Mediterranee, founded in 2015, rescues hundreds of men, women and children each week from flimsy dinghies and boats in the Mediterranean, along with other NGOs.

Nicolini was recognised for "her boundless humanity and unwavering commitment to refugee crisis management and integration in response to the arrival of thousands of refugees on the shores of Lampedusa and elsewhere in Italy".

The mayor of Lampedusa, Giuseppina Nicolini, has been recognised for her

work at the frontline of the refugee crisis (AFP Photo/ANDREAS SOLARO)

'Watery grave'

"I dedicate this prize to all those who did not make it across the sea because they were swallowed up, and also to Gabriele Del Grande," said Nicolini, referring to an Italian journalist arrested in Turkey this month while researching the lives of Syrian refugees.

"He was the first to count the Mediterranean's dead on a website, back when nobody even knew people were dying in the Mediterranean. He is now a prisoner in Turkey," she said, calling on the government to "bring him home".

The jury said SOS Mediterranee's Aquarius vessel, co-run by Doctors Without Borders, had saved more than 11,000 lives since it began search and rescue missions off Lampedusa in early 2016.

"We're so happy to be given this award together with Nicolini. We visited her when we were starting up and she said 'you are crazy but I am with you, because this is what we need after the failures of the EU'," said Sophie Beau, SOS Mediterranee co-founder.

The jury appealed to the international community "to ensure that the Mediterranean sea becomes, once again, a place where solidarity and intercultural dialogue hold sway, and that it ceases to serve as a watery grave".

Private rescue vessels sounded the alarm this weekend over the "unprecedented mass rescues" of people fleeing horrors in conflict-torn Libya, recovering seven bodies including that of an eight-year-old, and warning more migrants risked drowning without EU action.

Close to 37,000 people have been brought to safety in Italy so far this year, a 45 percent increase on the same period in 2016.

Migrants waiting to disembark from the Aquarius which has saved more than

11,000 lives since early 2016, the jury said (AFP Photo/Giovanni ISOLINO)

Solidarity

The EU's border control agency Frontex has accused donor-funded vessels of doing more harm than good by acting "like taxis" off Libya and tempting human traffickers to put as many people as possible out to sea in flimsy vessels.

Italian prosecutors have suggested they may have links with traffickers and in March named SOS Mediterranee's activity as being of interest to investigators, along with other private rescue vessels.

Their charges have been fiercely rejected by the NGOs, with SOS Mediterranee saying Wednesday it had "never, not once" been put in contact with migrants via smugglers.

"European governments need to show more solidarity to the humanitarian organisations that are working on the front line of this humanitarian crisis. Border control is not the solution," said Regina Catrambone, the director of MOAS rescue service.

UNESCO's Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize, created in 1989 to honour those making a significant contribution to peace, has gone in the past to Nelson Mandela, Israel's Shimon Peres and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, King Juan Carlos of Spain and former US president Jimmy Carter.

Papua New Guinea announces Australian refugee center closure

A Supreme Court ruling means an Australian-run refugee detention facility on Papua New Guinea is illegal and must close. Now PNG is working with Australia to find a new place for the refugees to go.

Deutsche Welle, 27 April 2016

The island nation of Papua New Guinea has announced it will close a center for asylum seekers it had been hosting on behalf of Australia. This comes a day after the Supreme Court in Papa New Guinea deemed it was unconstitutional to allow Australia to detain asylum seekers on the country's Manus Island.

"Respecting this ruling, Papua New Guinea will immediately ask the Australian government to make alternative arrangements for the asylum-seekers currently held at the regional processing center," Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said in a statement on Wednesday.

No exceptions

Australian policy regarding those who attempt to enter the country illegally by boat is to reject them and send them to detention camps, paid for by the Australian government, in Papua New Guinea and the island nation of Nauru. Those found to have legitimate claims for asylum can be resettled in Papua New Guinea or Cambodia under agreements reached between Australia and those two countries.

Regarding the current asylum seekers on Manus Island, O'Neill said that legitimate refugees were welcome to live in Papua New Guinea "only if they want to be a part of our society and make a contribution to our community," but added: "It is clear that several of these refugees do not want to settle in Papua New Guinea and that is their decision."

There are currently over 800 asylum seekers being held on Manus Island, and Papua New Guinea will now being working with Australian officials about where to relocate the people being detained. Australia has made it clear that under no circumstances will they be resettled in Australia.

Self-immolation

Meanwhile, a 23-year-old refugee in an Australian-run detention facility on Nauru is set to be airlifted to an Australian hospital after setting himself on fire Tuesday during a routine visit of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, to the facility.

According to news reports, the man shouted "I can not take this any more" before setting himself on fire. Bystanders quickly attempted to douse the flames with water and blankets.

The man is in critical condition, but Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has said his application for asylum would not be influenced.

mz/kms (Reuters, AFP, AP)

Australia doctors demand children be freed from #immigration detention http://t.co/oSHkZyvn5V pic.twitter.com/s9yLBKHA2Z

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 12, 2015

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'Moral duty' to save Mediterranean migrants, says Gauck

The German president has called for more compassion toward migrants in view of Germany's own experiences with forced migration after WWII. He said providing them with sanctuary was 'non-negotiable.'

Deutsche Welle, 20 June 2015

 Refugees on board a ship REUTERS/Antonio Parrinello

Speaking on Saturday at a ceremony in Berlin to remember victims of displacement, Gauck said he hoped that the memory of German expellees who were forced to flee the country's former eastern territories during and after World War II would deepen understanding for migrants today.

He described how 12 to 14 million Germans lost their homelands by the end of the war, leading to a population increase of 20 percent in the former West and East Germanies.

Gauck pointed out that if Germany had been able to integrate millions of refugees 70 years ago when it was "poor and devastated," it should be able to do more in the present refugee crisis, and even benefit from it.

"Why should a Germany that is economically successful and politically stable not be able to recognize future opportunities in today's challenges?" he asked.

"Let us remember what a great part refugees and forced migrants played in successfully rebuilding Germany," he added.

More European help

He also called on European Union countries to do more to help cope with the current growing wave of refugees coming to Europe.

In view of the huge number of migrants who have died attempting the perilous boat crossing from Africa to Europe over the Mediterranean, Gauck said it was a "moral duty" to save people from drowning.

"We would lose our self-respect if we left people drifting on waters near our continent to cope for themselves," he said, adding that all European states had an obligation to provide people with a safe refuge.

This obligation was "non-negotiable," and lasted until migrants either could return home without danger or had found a place to live in safety either in Germany or elsewhere, he said.

'No easy solutions'

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere also spoke at the ceremony, warning that there were no "easy solutions" to the current migration crisis.

Last year, the German government declared the 20 June to be a day of remembrance for refugees and displaced people, in conjunction with the United Nations' World Refugee Day.

The German day is partly to commemorate the millions of Germans who were forced to flee their homes in several eastern European countries as a result of World War II and seek refuge in Germany and Austria, greatly swelling the populations there.

tj/sgb (AFP, dpa, KNA, epd)

Related Articles:

EU approves military mission to tackle migrant smugglers: sources

Rohingya hope for peaceful Ramadan in Indonesia

Rohingya women are seen standing at a confinement area in Kuala Cangkoi,

Indonesia's Aceh province (AFP Photo/Chaideer Mahyuddin)

EU approves military mission to tackle migrant smugglers: sources

Yahoo – AFP, Alix Rijckaert, 19 June 2015

EU member states approved plans on Friday to launch as early as next week

 the first phase of a military operation against people smugglers in the Mediterranean,

sources said (AFP Photo/Jason Florio)

Brussels (AFP) - EU member states approved plans Friday to launch as early as next week the first phase of a military operation against people smugglers in the Mediterranean, sources said.

"Everything is now in place so that EU foreign ministers meeting Monday can approve the launch of the mission," one EU diplomat told AFP.

Other sources said member states have committed to supply enough ships and aircraft to allow the first, intelligence-gathering, phase of the operation to go ahead.

Stung into action by the loss of an estimated 800 migrants when their rickety boat sank off southern Italy, EU leaders agreed at an emergency summit in April to formulate a comprehensive plan to tackle the problem at source.

As well as boosting search and rescue efforts, they called on EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini to draw up military options against the ruthless traffickers exploiting the waves of humanity seeking to get to Europe across the Mediterranean.

The first phase of intelligence gathering is meant to be followed by active intervention to board and disable smuggler vessels and arrest the traffickers.

A third phase would extend these actions into Libyan territorial waters and possibly inside the country itself.

While some EU states such as Britain and France favour moving promptly to Phase 2 and 3, others have serious reservations about direct involvement in a chaotic Libya where rival factions are fighting for control and the internationally-recognised government has fled Tripoli to take up residence in Benghazi.

To meet these reservations, the EU April summit agreed that Phase 2 and 3 would only go ahead if the bloc obtained Libyan consent -- a difficult prospect -- and a UN Security Council resolution.

Russia, one of the five UNSC permanent members, and others "want a clear Libyan consent; we are still working on it," said a senior EU official who asked not to be named.

"We are rather optimistic that in the end there will be a UNSC resolution to go on with the other phases; there is no absolute certitude but there is a very good prospect," the official said.

Newly arrived migrants huddle together as they try to protect themselves from

 the rain while waiting to be registered in Mytilene, Greece, on June 19, 2015

(AFP Photo/Louisa Gouliamaki)

Opposition to sharing burden

Some 100,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean so far this year, most of them landing in Italy, Greece and Malta which all want their EU peers to share more of the burden.

The European Commission has proposed that 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean asylum-seekers who have arrived in Europe should be redistributed and that 20,000 Syrians living in camps outside Europe should be resettled across the 28-nation bloc.

Many member states are prepared to contribute to the humanitarian efforts of search and rescue but are less forthcoming when it comes to taking in more migrants or backing the military option.

Migration is a hugely sensitive issue and far-right and eurosceptic parties have capitalised on public concerns about a massive influx of refugees to make considerable inroads at the expense of established parties.

Earlier this week, EU ministers could not reach agreement on the Commission proposals.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Wednesday that member states remained "far from consensus" on how to distribute refugees between them.

"These are difficult discussions we're having at the moment and all my conversations with European colleagues show that we remain far from consensus and that a lot persuasion will still be necessary," he said.

"In our view, the best way is mandatory quotas for the European member states."

Germany last year took in 200,000 asylum seekers and expects as many as 450,000 this year.

Australian Minister Rebuffs Claims People Smugglers Paid to Return Boat to Indonesian Waters

Jakarta Globe, Erin Cook, Jun 10, 2015

Indonesian officials check a lifeboat stranded on Karang Jambe beach, in
Kebumen, Central Java, on Feb. 25, 2014. (EPA Photo/Himawan Nugraha)

Jakarta. Australia’s Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton has denied claims that officials had paid the crew of a boat turned back from Australian waters to Indonesia, which ran aground on a reef near Rote island, East Nusa Tenggara province.

The boat, carrying 65 people from Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, was intercepted by the Australian Navy in May while heading to New Zealand.

Police have charged the crew with people smuggling offenses and it was during questioning that the allegations of payment were made.

Rote Police Chief Hidayat said the boat’s captain, Yohanes, said the six crew members had been paid $5,000 cash each by an Australian official named Agus.

“I saw the money, the $5,000 was in $100 bank notes,” Hidayat said.

Dutton was asked on Tuesday if the payment had taken place, to which he said only “no,” before referring to the government policy of not speaking publicly about “on-water matters.”

A statement released by the Immigration Department said: “The Australian government does not comment on or disclose operational details where this would prejudice the outcome of current or future operations.”

The “turn back the boats” policy has been a source of tension to Australian and Indonesia’s relations, with an estimated 15 boats towed back to Indonesian waters since it was enacted at the end of 2013.

A joint letter by the passengers to the New Zealand government pleading for asylum also alleges the payments were made.

Speaking to Fairfax Media, Don Rothwell, a professor in international law at the Australian National University, said payments could itself be seen as a form of people smuggling, though the move would be a first.

“If Australian officials were to pay crews to take those people to Indonesia, I suspect that Indonesia and some other regional neighbors would take a dim view of that conduct from Australia,” he told Fairfax.

Rothwell said payments would not violate Australia’s Migration Act.

Related Article:

Australia's record as humanitarian world leader 'has deteriorated', says US official

EU to launch Mediterranean naval mission to tackle migrant crisis

Ministers want to seize smugglers and destroy their boats off Libyan coast to combat rising number of migrants fleeing war and poverty in north Africa

The Guardian, Arthur Neslen in Brussels,Monday 18 May 2015 

Migrants queue at a detention centre in Tripoli on Monday. They were arrested
 as they attempted to board boats destined for Europe, authorities in the Libyan
capital said. Photograph: AFP/Getty

EU ministers have agreed to launch a sea and air mission that could in its later phases destroy vessels used by human traffickers, which have carried an estimated 1,800 migrants to their deaths in the Mediterranean this year.

An intelligence-gathering operation will herald the mission’s first phase, with the UK expected to offer drones and surveillance equipment as a partial riposte to calls for it to take in more refugees.

In later phases, hostile vessels suspected of harbouring migrants could be boarded, searched, seized or disposed of in Libyan territory or international waters – as long as a chapter 7 UN resolution to authorise the use of force to do so is obtained first.

The plan could be launched as soon as 25 June, the EU’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told a Brussels press conference.

“There is a clear sense of urgency as we all know that June is the beginning of summer and in this operation, seasons are important,” she said. “As summer comes, more people are travelling so we want to have the operation in place as soon as possible, if it is to deter the traffickers’ and smugglers’ organisations.”

Mogherini avoided mention of the “boots on the ground” option to destroy smugglers’ assets, outlined in an EU strategy paper revealed by the Guardian before the summit.

The mission’s rules of engagement have still to be thrashed out and one diplomat described the deployment of such forces as “the next step in terms of operational details”. The level of collateral damage considered acceptable would also be discussed after the mission was up and running, he said.

  

The operation will have its headquarters in Rome and be run by an Italian rear admiral, Enrico Credendino, with an initial year-long mandate.

Concerns about the militarisation of the migrants issue will probably be raised at the UN, though, with Libya already describing the mission as very worrying, citing concerns over its potential to mistakenly target fishermen’s boats.

Refugee rights groups fear that bombing the escape routes of people fleeing for their lives from Syria, Eritrea and west Africa – where most migrants begin their journeys – will simply lead to more deaths, away from the public spotlight.

“An unintended consequence of this mission is that it may even lead to more deaths,” said Michael Diedring, the secretary general of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE). “If there is a shortage of vessels, even more people will be packed into them. There is even a possibility, given the desperate situation these people face, that they might try to construct their own boats.”

At present, smugglers’ vessels are often leased from local fishermen on a trip-by-trip basis by a wide variety of low-level criminals. The last-minute loading of human cargoes could prevent the timely targeting of such vessels.

Once loaded, the hulls of these boats are often crammed with people not visible from outside and Diedring said that there was a huge risk that boats could be targeted with people still on board.

“The solution to putting the smugglers out of business is to increase safe legal channels for migration,” he said. “It is ironic that people fleeing from war and persecution are being met with more of the same.”

Search and rescue operations have been stepped up in the Mediterranean since an estimated 800 people died when a ship sank off the Libyan coast in April. The UK has sent a Royal Navy flagship, HMS Bulwark, to join the operation and sent £800m in aid to help poor frontline countries such as Lebanon and Jordan deal with a refugee crisis of overwhelming proportions. About 1.5 million refugees have fled to the two small countries.

But the EU ended its Mare Nostrum search and rescue mission, despite warnings of the potential for an increase in tragedies at sea. Members currently remain at odds over a European commission proposal to more evenly share the number of migrants who arrive in Europe between EU member states.

Over the weekend, the French prime minister, Manuel Valls, joined the UK in opposing a quota measure which could stir anti-migrant feelings. “France has already done a lot,” he said.

Under the commission proposal, France would have been asked to take 14% of migrants who reached the EU’s shores, while 18% would be assigned to Germany, by far the largest recipient of migrants at present. Italy would have been asked to accept nearly 12% of the north African evacuees, and Spain 9%.

Cuba's Elian Gonzalez, now grown up, hopes to return to US

Yahoo - AFP, 18 May 2015

Elian Gonzalez (R), in a church in Havana, during the celebration of 10th

Anniversary of his return from Miami, on June 30, 2010 (AFP Photo/

Adalberto Roque)

Washington (AFP) - Elian Gonzalez, who as a child was at the center of a bitter international custody battle between his Cuban father and his Miami relatives, now dreams of returning to the United States, he said in an interview broadcast Monday.

Now 21, Gonzalez was just six years old when he was found floating off of Florida's coast in November, 1999.

A rickety boat carrying his mother and several other would-be refugees, capsized, and Elian -- found floating in a car inner tube -- was the only survivor.

Fifteen years later, asked where he would like to go if he could travel anywhere in the world, Gonzalez in an interview with ABC television replied without hesitating: "Los Estados Unidos" -- the United States.

"I want the time to give my love to American people," he added in halting English.

He recalled for ABC the trauma of his mother's death.

"I remember when the boat capsized, when we fell on the sea," he said.

"I remember when I was put on the raft and my mom was covering me and I was raising my head, looking around... and at some point I raised my head and I didn't see her again," Elian recounted.

"I was alone in the middle of the sea."

The six-year-old was sent to live with his relatives in Miami, but soon became the object of an international battle, after his father demanded he be returned to live with him in Cuba.

The dispute made international headlines after Elian's relatives -- and the larger Cuban-American community in Miami -- insisted they would not allow him to return to Cuba, fearing he faced a life of privation and political oppression there.

Eventually, US courts sided with Elian's father and then-US attorney general Janet Reno ordered that US federal agents seize the boy.

Iconic news photos of the April 2000 raid showing the terrified child being taken at gunpoint were beamed around the world.

Little more was heard from Elian, other than when his image was occasionally beamed on Cuban television as a model member of the communist party's youth wing.

Now an adult engaged to be married and pursuing engineering studies, Gonzalez said he has put the traumatic episode behind him.

"For my family it has always been, we always have the desire to say to the American people, to say to each household our gratitude, appreciation and love that we have," he said, repeating his wish to see America.

"I could personally thank those people who helped us, who were there by our side. Because we're so grateful for what they did."

'We helped out of solidarity': Indonesian fishermen come to aid of boat migrants

While governments have refused to receive migrants stranded in Andaman Sea, Aceh villagers have stepped up to fill humanitarian void

The Guardian, Kate Lamb in Langsa, Monday 18 May 2015

Boats leaving Pusung, a small island fishing village off the coast of
Langsa. Photograph: Antonio Zambardino/Guardian

When Myusup Mansur, a fisherman from the small island village of Pusung, first caught a glimpse of the boat in the distance in waters off North Sumatra, it was dark and impossible for him to make out the hundreds of migrants huddled on the deck.

It was only when two other fishermen pulled up and told him what they had seen that he realised what was happening: scores of people were jumping from the boat into the sea.

They headed in the direction of the boat while radioing in for rescue reinforcement on the way. “We helped them because they needed help,” said Mansur, 38. “What is more human than that?”

Six hundred and seventy-seven migrants were brought ashore late last Thursday by Mansur and his fellow fishermen. While governments around the region have refused to receive what is thought to be thousands of migrants from Burma and Bangladesh stranded and starving in the Andaman Sea, the fishermen of Indonesia have stepped up to fill the humanitarian void.

More than 1,350 migrants, a mixture of ethnic Rohingya from Burma and migrants from Bangladesh, have landed on the shores of Aceh, Indonesia, this week and it has been the fishermen who have come to their rescue.

Mansur and the other two fishermen’s small boats could each take only about 30 people but there were many more migrants waiting to be rescued. “I was lost for words,” he said. “I was panicked, because I have never seen so many people in the water like that. I kept pulling them from the water one by one, I couldn’t count how many, but my boat was full. After that I couldn’t take any more and there were still people crying for help.

“I didn’t understand their language. I couldn’t ask them anything, and I couldn’t understand what they were asking,” he added. “They just kept calling to me for help.”

Nearly two hours passed before six large fishing boats that had also been out at sea arrived to help. The fishermen laboured together, pulling the migrants from the sea and transferring them from boat to boat. Finally Mansur linked his small turquoise and orange boat to the migrant vessel to collect the women and children who had remained on board. He said he would do the same again if faced with another similar situation.

Suryadi, who only uses one name, from the fishermen association in Langsa, Aceh, said: “We helped out of solidarity. If we find someone in the ocean we have to help them no matter who they are. The police did not like us helping but we could not avoid it. Our sense of humanity was higher. So we just helped with the limited resources that we had at the time.”

Over recent weeks, boats full of migrants have been pushed back and forth between the navies of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, with no country willing to take them in. The United Nations estimates there are up to 8,000 more migrants languishing at sea.

Those who have been rescued and brought to land have recounted horrific stories of murders over the last supplies of water and food during almost a month stranded at sea.

Andreas Harsono, from Human Rights Watch in Jakarta, said the fishermen were offering assistance that official channels had failed to provide. “The fact that these fishermen are helping these people shows that they have a better humanitarian understanding than government officials in Jakarta,” he said.

Harsono said that in Aceh, a province that in the past was wracked by a decades-long separatist conflict, people understood suffering and the value of compassion. In Mansur’s village a 45-minute boat ride away from the Langsa temporary camp where the 677 migrants are now being housed, that observation resonates.

When Mansur collected 30 women and children at sea and made the six-hour journey back to Pusung, the migrants were greeted with open arms. “We bought them a big bunch of bananas and water and they all bathed in our homes,” said Saipul Umar, 54. “They were so weak, especially the small children. They were traumatised.”

The migrants were given food, water, coffee and cakes, and a place to wash. “We treated them like family,” said Sulaiman, 76. Others asked questions about their stories and why they were fleeing their countries.

After learning about the treatment of the ethnic Rohingya in Burma, where they are persecuted and denied citizenship, one village resident said that perhaps the migrants should have stayed in Pusung.

“They wanted to live here,” she said, “They didn’t want to go.”

PKS Calls for Immediate Response to Growing Rohingya Refugee Crisis

Jakarta Globe, May 17, 2015

Rohingya migrants who recently arrived in Indonesia by boat wait in line to be
registered in Kuala Langsa, in Aceh province, on Sunday. The United Nations has
 called on countries around the Andaman Sea not to push back the thousands of
desperate Bangladeshis and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar now stranded in
rickety boats, and to rescue them instead. (Reuters Photo/Roni Bintang)

Jakarta. Legislators from an Indonesian Islamic party have urged the government to address the Rohingya boatpeople crisis by issuing a regulation allowing Jakarta to assist the migrants, including by providing temporary shelter for them.

Fahri Hamzah, a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, said in Jakarta on Sunday that he was concerned with media reports that Indonesian officials had prohibited boats carrying hundreds of Rohingya migrants from reaching Indonesian shores.

He said he understood that officials were turning the boats back because of a lack of legal grounds to assist the refugees, but added this should not be the case.

“[Lack of regulation] should not be an excuse to turn a blind eye to the suffering of people from other nations,” said Fahri, also a deputy secretary general of the Islamic-based Prosperous Justice Party, or PKS.

“Their suffering is evident. Do we, as a nation that believes in humanity, have the heart to see them suffer?”

He urged President Joko Widodo to issue a presidential regulation to specifically address the growing crisis at sea.

Fahri added that Indonesia should not treat the boatpeople the same way that neighboring Malaysia and Thailand are doing, by pushing the boats out of their national waters in what the International Organization for Migration has blasted as a perverse game of “maritime ping-pong.”

Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have been criticized for sending Rohingya refugees back to sea on rickety, unseaworthy boats after catching them in the countries’ waters or after also giving them food.

Indonesia and Malaysia last week saw a surge in refugees from Bangladesh and Myanmar following a Thai government crackdown on human trafficking, under which the Thai authorities are blocking boats carrying migrants from landing.

Neither of the governments of the three countries has responded to an appeal made by the United Nations’ refugee agency, the UNHCR, last week for an international search and rescue operation for the thousands believed to be stranded in Southeast Asian waters.

The UNHCR has said several thousand migrants were abandoned at sea by smugglers after the Thai crackdown, warning that the region is risking a “massive humanitarian crisis,” Reuters reported.

Another PKS legislator, Sukamta, said last week that Indonesia’s immigration law and international relations law actually addressed the matter of migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers.

He added, though, that the lack of derivative regulations meant there were no technical details for officials to adhere to in addressing actual problems.

“There is no presidential decree yet for those laws. The presidential decree should serve as an operational guideline for how we should treat refugees,” said Sukamta, a member of House Commission I, which oversees defense and foreign affairs.

“We want to make sure that this country, Indonesia, sides with humanity, at least by providing [the refugees] with temporary shelter. The government can do this as long as it has the will to,” he added as quoted by state-run news agency Antara.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman on Sunday said he would hold separate meetings this week with his Indonesian and Thai counterparts to discuss the Rohingya migrant crisis — including to work out a collective proposal under Asean and discuss it with Myanmar to resolve the Rohingya migrant crisis.

“As Asean chairman, we will discuss in depth, so that this problem will be solved. I hope Myanmar will sit with us to find solutions before we take it to the international level,” Anifah said, according to Malaysian newspaper The Star.

“If necessary, we will call for an emergency Asean meeting as suggested by the Prime Minister,’’ he  added.

University of Indonesia international law professor Hikmahanto Juwana said Indonesia must be able to convince Malaysia and Thailand to allow Rohingya migrants to enter their territories so that the ill sick could be given medical treatment.

“We’ve already done the right thing if we focus on the humanitarian aspect, especially for those who have entered Indonesia, such as those who have been rescued by Indonesian fishermen,” he said.

“Don’t ever send them back to sea; don’t give them food and then send them away like Thailand and Malaysia have done.”

He suggested Indonesia could set up a refugee camp on one of its thousands of islands, as it did for Vietnamese war refugees on Galang Island in Riau Islands province.

“Financially, we cannot run such an island alone. We would need help from others. We need to discuss this with the UNHCR,” Hikmahanto said.

Most importantly, he went on, the issue would never be resolved without serious discussions with Myanmar, which refuses to recognize the Rohingya or acknowledge the discrimination and violence they face in the country.

Myanmar has refused to attend crisis talks on the issue slated for May 29 in Thailand if other countries use the word “Rohingya” at the meeting, saying it does not recognize the term.

One of migrants housed in a makeshift camp in Langsa,

 Indonesia, shows the scars he says are from violence that erupted

 on the boats while still at sea. Photograph: Antonio Zambardino/

Guardian

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Over 900 migrants rescued as pressure grows over SE Asia crisis

Over 900 migrants rescued as pressure grows over SE Asia crisis

Yahoo – AFP, Nurdin Hasan, 15 May 2015

A group of rescued migrant children at a shelter in the Indonesian fishing

 town of Kuala Langsa, Aceh province, on May 15, 2015 (AFP Photo/Chaideer

Mahyuddin)

About 900 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants made it to shore in Indonesia and Thailand Friday, as Myanmar undermined calls for a coordinated response to Southeast Asia's human-trafficking crisis by threatening to boycott a planned summit.

The Indonesian and Malaysian policy of turning away stricken boats filled with Bangladeshis and ethnic Rohingya from Myanmar has been met with outrage, including from Washington and the United Nations.

Activists estimate up to 8,000 migrants may be at sea in Southeast Asia, with horrific tales emerging of passengers abandoned by abusive smugglers, horribly cramped conditions, starvation and death.

In his first public comments on the issue, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said he was "very concerned with the plight of migrants" but gave no indication of a policy shift on an issue that has caused regional finger-pointing.

A group of rescued women and children migrants, mostly Rohingya from

 Myanmar and Bangladesh, pictured at a confinement area in the fishing town 

of Kuala Langsa in Aceh province, northern Indonesia on May 15, 2015 

(AFP Photo/Januar)

"We are in contact with all relevant parties, with whom we share the desire to find a solution to this crisis," he said in a statement, without elaborating.

It was not clear whether those "relevant parties" included Myanmar, which faces harsh criticism of its treatment of Rohingya and on Friday snubbed neighbouring Thailand's call for a regional meeting on the problem on May 29.

'We cried for help'

The unfolding humanitarian crisis appears to have been precipitated by a Thai police crackdown that has thrown busy people-smuggling routes into chaos just as a surge of migrants has taken to the sea.

"We are unlikely to attend... we do not accept it if they (Thailand) are inviting us just to ease the pressure they are facing," Myanmar presidential office director Zaw Htay told AFP.

Indonesian police said at least 797 people were rescued Friday by fisherman in Aceh province on the east coast of huge Sumatra island.

Rescued migrants, mostly Rohingya from Myanmar and Bangladesh, gathere

 on arrival at a confinement area in the fishing town of Kuala Langsa in Indonesia's

Aceh province on May 15, 2015 (AFP Photo/Januar)

One overloaded boat was sinking off the coast when local fishermen came to the rescue, picking up migrants as they jumped from the stricken vessel, police said.

Muhammad Amin, a Rohingya, told AFP that the boat had first been turned back by the Indonesian navy towards Malaysian waters, only for the Malaysian navy to direct it back towards Indonesia.

In an increasingly desperate situation -- after nearly two months at sea and the crew having abandoned ship -- he said the Bangladeshis attacked the Rohingya and threw some of them overboard, and he was forced to swim for hours before being rescued.

"As we were swimming, we saw a fishing boat, and we cried for help, then fishermen pulled us one by one from the sea," said the 35-year-old.

'Human ping pong'

Search and rescue officials said it was not immediately clear whether all those rescued had come from the same boat.

Fishermen and National Park officials provide food supplies to Rohingya migrants

 stranded on a boat drifting in Thai waters off the southern island of Koh Lipe 

on May 14, 2015 (AFP Photo/Christophe Archambault)

At least 61 children were ferried to shore by Indonesian fishermen. Nearly 600 migrants were already sheltering in Aceh after managing to get ashore in recent days.

A military spokesman said earlier the navy had prevented a boat carrying migrants from entering Indonesian waters but he later clarified that the boat had been empty, and the navy found migrants in the water nearby and helped them to shore.

In Thailand, the navy discovered 106 Rohingya on an island off the coast of Phang Na province but it was unclear whether their boat had a problem or they had been abandoned, the provincial governor said.

Earlier Friday, a boat carrying about 300 Rohingya left Thailand's waters, a Thai official said, after authorities repaired its engine and provided food.

A Thai official said the passengers -- who wanted to reach Malaysia -- declined offers to come ashore in Thailand, fearing they would be sent back to Myanmar.

They planned instead to make for Indonesia, the official said.

Rohingya migrants on a boat drifting in Thai waters off the southern island of Koh

Lipe in the Andaman sea on May 14, 2015 (AFP Photo/Christophe Archambault)

Regional governments have been roundly chastised for what Human Rights Watch described as a deadly game of "human ping pong" in rejecting migrants.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein voiced serious concern, saying he was "appalled" at the migrant boat push-backs "which will inevitably lead to many avoidable deaths."

The Muslim Rohingya flee by the thousands each year to escape state-sanctioned discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar and recent sectarian violence against them.

There are more than a million Rohingya living in Myanmar's western state of Rakhine, many going back generations, but Myanmar insists they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

The Bangladeshis are thought mainly to be economic migrants escaping their country's grinding poverty.

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Almost 500 Rohingya rescued off Indonesia: officials