KUALA LUMPUR, May 15 — Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir has made an impassioned plea on Facebook to organise a public humanitarian mission to help thousands of migrants adrift in Southeast Asian seas.
The prominent social activist appealed to her followers on Facebook to provide boats, food and water for a mission to help the migrants who have nowhere to go after both Malaysia and Thailand began turning them away at sea.
“Does anyone have seaworthy boats? Can we get food, water and other essential items plus medical personnel and send them out to the boats to help these people for now?
“Anyone who wants to help, please step forward. Anyone who doesn’t, just keep quiet and step aside. Thanks,” she wrote on Facebook.
An estimated 6,000 to 20,000 migrants are fleeing ethnic persecution in Myanmar and poverty in Bangladesh. They are adrift in the Andaman Sea and the Straits of Malacca,
In what has been called a massive humanitarian disaster by the United Nations, the boat people are believed to have been abandoned by their traffickers with little food or water.
In what is a major regional crisis, most were thought to be headed to Malaysia, but after more than 1,500 migrants came ashore in Malaysia and Indonesia in the past week, both countries declared their intention to turn away any more boats carrying migrants.
Marina, who is also the daughter of former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, took to Facebook today amid rising public concerns in Malaysia about the plight of the boat people.
“Ok this is what I can think of right now to deal with this terrible humanitarian crisis out at sea. This is a temporary solution.
“The permanent solution needs to be dealt with at the government to government level. As chair of Asean, Malaysia needs to take the lead.”
As Malaysia continues to shun them, a former foreign minister also urged today for swift action from Putrajaya to save them from imminent death.
Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar said silence was no longer an option and Putrajaya must respond to calls from the United Nations and the international community to step in and aid the refugees.
“Act now to save d Rohingya boat people fm drowning. Malaysian leaders pls respnd to d call of UNSG n intl comnty. Silence is nt an optn,” Syed Hamid tweeted today on his account @syedhamidalbar.
Two days ago, Syed Hamid had pleaded with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to let the Rohingyas land.
“Mohon @NajibRazak @HishammuddinH2O @Zahid_Hamidi utk benarkn 350 pax + 80 chldrn boat to land, avoid drowning. I call in d name of humanity,” Syed Hamid tweeted, tagging the accounts of Najib, Hishammuddin and Zahid.
None of the leaders responded.
Malaysia has since said it would push boats full of migrants back to sea, a policy that has drawn criticism from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) who warned of a “massive humanitarian crisis”.
“I don’t see why we are under pressure,” said Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.
“We are doing what we think we should do. We have to consider what our people want to see us doing. They don’t want to see immigrants come into our country.”
Over the weekend, more than 1,000 Rohingyas and Bangladeshis were stranded on Langkawi, Kedah, apparently after human traffickers abandoned ship and left them alone.
Malay Mail Online reported on Tuesday that the Home Ministry classified them as illegal immigrants, the 1,058 of them will be held at the Belantik detention centre in Kedah over the next one to three months before they are sent back to their home countries.
