DHAKA: Myanmar’s navy rescued 208 fortune seekers from the shore on Thursday.

They has carried out its first rescue of a migrant boat as it faced mounting international pressure to tackle a regional migration crisis.

“A navy ship found two boats... on May 21 while on patrol,” Tin Maung Swe, a senior official in the western state of Rakhine said.

The Thai-owned boat was guided to shore before dawn on Friday in Maungdaw township -- the departure point for many Rohingya boats headed south through the Bay of Bengal, reports the Straits Times.

Photographs on the Ministry of Information’s Facebook page showed scores of bare-chested men crammed into the hull of a wooden fishing vessel as it made land.

“Necessary medical healthcare and foods have been provided” to the passengers at a temporary camp in Maungdaw, he said.

BDST: 1257 HRS, MAY 22, 2015
BD/