PHUKET: Contact has been broken with two boats stranded at sea off the coast of Thailand and Malaysia with passengers said to be in desperate need of food and water.
While storms last night may have blown the boats into a position where mobile telephone communication is impossible, the rain could have delivered the water the boatpeople said they needed.
A 15-year-old Rohingya boy told Phuketwan by telephone through a translator yesterday that the 400 Rohingya and Bangladeshis on the boat were urgently in need of food and water.
The previous day, a similar message had been passed from a boat carrying 350 - including 84 children and 50 women - to Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, which monitors the mass exodus from Burma and Bangladesh.
Thousands of people have been left at sea after a journey of up to one month, with some dead and others reported close to death, as Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia so far show a heartless response to international pressure to mount a regional rescue operation.
Talks on the years-long problem of migration by sea from Burma and Bangladesh have been scheduled on May 29 in Bangkok but by then it could be too late for many on the seven vessels said to be stranded at sea in South East Asia now.
While storms last night may have blown the boats into a position where mobile telephone communication is impossible, the rain could have delivered the water the boatpeople said they needed.
A 15-year-old Rohingya boy told Phuketwan by telephone through a translator yesterday that the 400 Rohingya and Bangladeshis on the boat were urgently in need of food and water.
The previous day, a similar message had been passed from a boat carrying 350 - including 84 children and 50 women - to Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, which monitors the mass exodus from Burma and Bangladesh.
Thousands of people have been left at sea after a journey of up to one month, with some dead and others reported close to death, as Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia so far show a heartless response to international pressure to mount a regional rescue operation.
Talks on the years-long problem of migration by sea from Burma and Bangladesh have been scheduled on May 29 in Bangkok but by then it could be too late for many on the seven vessels said to be stranded at sea in South East Asia now.
As I said before, if you have the phone number, then you can trace the last cell tower.
The problem is, does anyone want to do this, who can do this? Which of course is government. The answer seems to have a clear "no" as they don't really care.
Posted by Tbs on May 14, 2015 23:19