BANGKOK (AP) – In the past month, more than 3,000 desperate, hungry people have landed on the shores of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, drawing international attention to a crisis in Southeast Asia. Arrivals of the overcrowded boats – crammed with Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in Myanmar and impoverished Bangladeshis hoping to find jobs – have now slowed. But the crisis is far from over, and will be the topic of a Friday conference in Bangkok to be attended by senior officials from across the Asia-Pacific and beyond.
A look at key issues and challenges:
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HISTORY:
Minority Rohingya Muslims have been fleeing predominantly Buddhist Myanmar for decades, and paying human traffickers with flimsy boats to take them away from violence and state-sanctioned discrimination. For years, Southeast Asia has quietly ignored the issue, partly because of a policy of not publicly criticizing each other’s governments. But recently the problem became too big to overlook. Thailand launched a crackdown on human trafficking earlier this month that prompted smugglers to abandon their boats, leaving what aid groups estimated were thousands of migrants stranded at sea. Survivors, including women and children, came ashore with first-hand accounts of beatings, ransom kidnappings by traffickers and near-starvation.