SYDNEY, May 23, 2015 (AFP) - Indonesia has told Australia that most of the migrants stranded at sea in Southeast Asia are illegal labourers from Bangladesh, not oppressed Muslim Rohingya, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in comments published Saturday.
More than 3,500 migrants have swum to shore or been rescued off the coasts of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh since a Thai crackdown on human-trafficking in early May threw the illicit trade into chaos. Speaking to The Weekend Australian newspaper, Bishop said Indonesia estimated that only 30 to 40 percent of the thousands still stranded at sea were Rohingya -- an impoverished Muslim community from Myanmar’s western Rakhine state.
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