Dhaka: The UN refugee agency UNHCR urged against indefinite detention of Rohingya and Bangladeshi nationals who ‘are stranded on smugglers boats between the Andaman Sea and the Straits of Malacca’, said spokesman for the UN secretary-general Stéphane Dujarric on 12 May at the daily press briefing.

Dujarric said that UN refugee agency appealed to ‘Governments in South-East Asia to step up search-and-rescue efforts and to keep their borders open’.

‘A partner NGO, the Arakan Project, estimates that several thousand people — believed to be mostly Rohingya and Bangladeshi nationals — could be adrift at sea as smugglers abandon them to avoid arrest in the wake of recent crackdowns in Malaysia and Thailand’.

UNHCR also welcomed ‘the rescue of hundreds of people off the coast of Indonesia and Malaysia in recent days’ said Dujarric.

He also said ‘it has been alerted that there could be many more such boats that need to be located and assisted’. 

‘UNHCR staff has spoken to survivors and is distributing relief items and providing counselling. The UN refugee agency stresses that the first priority is humanitarian relief, followed by the identification of those in need of international protection. 

‘UNHCR stands ready to help address the root causes of the outflow, including the resolution of longstanding issues in Myanmar’ Dujarric added.