Indonesia

The Turkish navy is carrying out efforts to reach Rohingya Muslims stranded in boats off the coast of Thailand and Malaysia, Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu said.

Burma and Bangladeshi immigrants began fighting each other with machetes and iron rods on a boat sailing near Indonesia, which is also in danger of sinking. Survivors speak of 100 dead.

The Philippines said May 19 it was ready to help Rohingya and Bangladeshi boatpeople, as its Southeast Asian neighbours faced outrage for turning them away.

The Indonesian navy prevented a suspected migrant boat from entering the country's waters at the weekend after the arrival of hundreds of Rohingya and Bangladeshis and has stepped up patrols in the area, the military said May 18.

Malaysia said on May 17 that its foreign minister would meet his Indonesian and Thai counterparts to discuss the surge in stricken boatpeople from Bangladesh and Myanmar flooding to Southeast Asia.
 
Foreign Minister Anifah Aman was to meet Indonesia's Retno Marsudi in the Malaysian city of Kota Kinabalu on May 18, a government official said.
 

Nearly 800 "boat people" were brought ashore in Indonesia on May 15 but other vessels crammed with migrants were sent back to sea despite a U.N. call to quickly rescue thousands set adrift in Southeast Asian waters. 

Another 700 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants were rescued off Indonesia on May 15, police said, as Myanmar undermined calls for a coordinated response to the human-trafficking crisis by threatening to boycott a planned Southeast Asian summit.

Malaysia said on May 14 it would push boats full of migrants back to sea, a policy that has drawn criticism from the U.N. refugee agency as thousands remained adrift in Southeast Asian waters. 

Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia will continue to push boats holding thousands of migrants back to sea, a senior Thai official said on May 134, despite a U.N. appeal for a rapid rescue operation to avoid a humanitarian crisis. 

Malaysia will turn away boats bearing desperate migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh unless they are in imminent danger of sinking, a top coast guard official said May 13.