INFOGRAPHIC | Ping-pong in the Asian Seas: Who Wants the Boat People?
MANILA – What started as a discovery of an apparent mass grave in the jungles of Thailand has lifted the lid off a much bigger horror involving several countries in South and Southeast Asia: the massive human trafficking in refugees, mostly stateless Rohingyas, whom neither Myanmar or Bangladesh would accept as theirs.
For years the Muslim Rohingyas have desperately clung to the bizarre promises of a better life dangled by people smugglers, and many have ended up in even more abject conditions. The pace of trafficking picked up even more when ethnic and sectarian violence flared up in Myanmar, forcing an estimated 100,000 Rohingyas leaving the Southeast Asian country by sea since 2012.
When Thailand stumbled last week on the mass graves of apparent trafficking victims abandoned or killed by the people smugglers, the discovery triggered a crackdown on the syndicates’ activities, forcing many to abandon the refugees even while they were still sailing to their destinations. Thus exploded the boatpeople crisis—a problem long festering, but now fully exposed.
On Wednesday, an initial breakthrough was reported in frenzied, multi-country talks initiated by the UN and the International Organization for Migration, with Malaysia and Indonesia persuaded to accept the refugees for processing.
This infographic below shows only the more recent cases of migrant boats that have either run aground, were turned back, or sank – the people rescued by fishermen – in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand primarily.
