SATUN: Contact has been lost with four asylum-seeking boats with hundreds of increasingly desperate men, women and children on board. The vessels are still believed to be in international waters off Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The photograph above was taken by a Thai fisherman at 1pm on Saturday in what's thought to be the last confirmed sighting of one of the vessels, carrying fleeing Rohingya and Bangladeshis seeking a haven from poverty and persecution.
''One of the men on the boat jumped overboard and swam up beside our boat,'' the fisherman told Phuketwan ''But we told him to go back.
''If we had taken him on board, it could have made others jump and swim.''
Phuketwan joined international media and NGOs in the search for the four boats yesterday.
Hours later, with fuel running low and lunchboxes intended for the hungry travellers growing stale, the flotilla of vessels returned to shore in Thailand's southern Satun province.
The fisherman who provided the photograph to Phuketwan said he saw four boats carrying masses of people on Saturday. Since then, no news outlet has reported further sightings.
A storm lashed the area on Saturday night. With each hour that the vessels go without contact, fears grow for the safety of passengers.
The media encountered one green trawler, carrying 450 people, last week, but it hasn't been sighted again by journalists.
Those who have already come ashore from other boats in Aceh, Indonesia, have told of squabbles over food and water leading to deadly fights and the deaths of adults and children.
The Royal Thai Navy is reported to have passed on 600 litres of fuel and some food to one boat over the weekend.
On shore, authorities in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia have expressed the desire for the boats to find other places to land.
International criticism is building for Burma (Myanmar), where most of the stateless Rohingya voyagers are treated abysmally, forcing them to take to the sea.
It's a crime against humanity that is clearly ethnic cleansing and may even amount to genocide, according to some.
Yet the brutal treatment of the Rohingya inside Burma is tolerated by other members of the Asean regional grouping, which lives by the code of not interfering in each other's internal affairs.
Just how long Asean can turn a collective blind eye to crimes of humanity and ethnic cleansing - and possibly genocide - is today's most important question.
The region does not need a nation of exterminators setting a poor example and bringing down on all member-states the growing condemnation of the rest of the world.
Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan visits Phuket today for a media conference where he is expected to update journalists .on treatment of Rohingya and traffickers in Thailand.
A meeting of 15 nations - but possibly without Burma - is scheduled for Thailand on May 29, which may be too late for the Rohingya and Bangladeshis already at sea.
WATCH How Trafficking Works
Phuketwan Investigative reporter Chutima Sidasathian, still being sued for criminal defamation over a Reuters paragraph: ''It's worse and worse, day by day. Nobody cares''.
http://journeyman.tv/67116/short-films/rohingya-hd.html
LISTEN The Rohingya Solution
A tragedy almost beyond words has been unfolding in Thailand, where a human smuggling network is thriving with the full knowledge of some corrupt law enforcement officers. Alan Morison of Phuketwan talks to Australia's AM program.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4231108.htm
The photograph above was taken by a Thai fisherman at 1pm on Saturday in what's thought to be the last confirmed sighting of one of the vessels, carrying fleeing Rohingya and Bangladeshis seeking a haven from poverty and persecution.
''One of the men on the boat jumped overboard and swam up beside our boat,'' the fisherman told Phuketwan ''But we told him to go back.
''If we had taken him on board, it could have made others jump and swim.''
Phuketwan joined international media and NGOs in the search for the four boats yesterday.
Hours later, with fuel running low and lunchboxes intended for the hungry travellers growing stale, the flotilla of vessels returned to shore in Thailand's southern Satun province.
The fisherman who provided the photograph to Phuketwan said he saw four boats carrying masses of people on Saturday. Since then, no news outlet has reported further sightings.
A storm lashed the area on Saturday night. With each hour that the vessels go without contact, fears grow for the safety of passengers.
The media encountered one green trawler, carrying 450 people, last week, but it hasn't been sighted again by journalists.
Those who have already come ashore from other boats in Aceh, Indonesia, have told of squabbles over food and water leading to deadly fights and the deaths of adults and children.
The Royal Thai Navy is reported to have passed on 600 litres of fuel and some food to one boat over the weekend.
On shore, authorities in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia have expressed the desire for the boats to find other places to land.
International criticism is building for Burma (Myanmar), where most of the stateless Rohingya voyagers are treated abysmally, forcing them to take to the sea.
It's a crime against humanity that is clearly ethnic cleansing and may even amount to genocide, according to some.
Yet the brutal treatment of the Rohingya inside Burma is tolerated by other members of the Asean regional grouping, which lives by the code of not interfering in each other's internal affairs.
Just how long Asean can turn a collective blind eye to crimes of humanity and ethnic cleansing - and possibly genocide - is today's most important question.
The region does not need a nation of exterminators setting a poor example and bringing down on all member-states the growing condemnation of the rest of the world.
Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan visits Phuket today for a media conference where he is expected to update journalists .on treatment of Rohingya and traffickers in Thailand.
A meeting of 15 nations - but possibly without Burma - is scheduled for Thailand on May 29, which may be too late for the Rohingya and Bangladeshis already at sea.
WATCH How Trafficking Works
Phuketwan Investigative reporter Chutima Sidasathian, still being sued for criminal defamation over a Reuters paragraph: ''It's worse and worse, day by day. Nobody cares''.
http://journeyman.tv/67116/short-films/rohingya-hd.html
LISTEN The Rohingya Solution
A tragedy almost beyond words has been unfolding in Thailand, where a human smuggling network is thriving with the full knowledge of some corrupt law enforcement officers. Alan Morison of Phuketwan talks to Australia's AM program.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4231108.htm
"If we had taken him on board, it could have made others jump and swim".
And there's the problem in a wider sense. No person, or country wants to set a precedent.
Posted by Sir Burr on May 18, 2015 08:41