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.