DHAKA: Thailand has found more than 100 migrants on a southern island but thousands remain adrift as boats are pushed back out into southeast Asia’s seas by governments who have ignored a UN call for a coordinated rescue.

The crisis has arisen because smugglers have abandoned boats crammed with migrants, many of them thirsty and sick, in the Andaman Sea following a Thai crackdown on human trafficking.

The clampdown has made the preferred trafficking route through Thailand too risky for criminals preying on Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in Myanmar and Bangladeshis seeking to escape poverty.

About 2,500 migrants have landed on Indonesia’s western tip and the northwest coast of Malaysia over the past week.

Thailand found 106 more on Friday on an island in the southern province of Phang Nga, provincial governor Prayoon Rattanasenee told the media.

It was unclear how they got to the island, he said, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1552 HRS, MAY 16, 2015
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