Staff Reporter :UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday that saving the lives of migrants stranded at sea in Southeast Asia should be a “top priority” as the region battles with an exodus of boat people fleeing persecution and poverty.The UN Chief said he hoped that regional nations would tackle the “root causes” of the current exodus at an upcoming conference in Thailand later this month, according to agency reports.”But when people are drifting on the sea, how we can search and rescue them and provide life saving humanitarian assistance, that is a top priority at this time,” he told reporters during a visit to Hanoi.Some 208 Bangladesh nationals rescued by Myanmar will be deported to Bangladesh, Myanmar officials confirmed Saturday, as the United Nations Chief called on regional nations to prioritize saving the lives of those still stranded at sea.Myanmar officials say all 208 men are from Bangladesh and will soon be returned there. South-east Asia is currently battling an exodus of boat people fleeing persecution and poverty, with upto 2,000 vulnerable migrants thought to be stranded in the Bay of Bengal, many at the mercy of ruthless people smugglers. Myanmar’s navy on Friday claimed that it rescued some 208 Bangladesh nationals.Bangladesh government will send a ten-member Border Guard Bangladesh delegation to Myanmar to ensure the identity of the nationals. “We are sending information note to the Myanmar government about the ten-member BGB team. we are also communicating with them through diplomatic channel in this regard,” said Major Abu Russel Siddique of 42 BGB. Most are Muslim Rohingyas from the western Rakhine state in Myanmar, where they are not recognised as citizens and instead referred to as “Bengalis” or illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.More than 3,500 migrants have swum to shore or been rescued off the coasts of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh since a Thai crackdown in early May on human-trafficking threw the illicit trade into chaos.Myanmar has faced increasing international pressure to stem the deluge from its shores and deliver urgent humanitarian relief to thousands still trapped at sea.On Friday, the country’s navy said it had carried out its first rescue of a migrant boat when scores of bare-chested men were found crammed into the hull of a wooden fishing vessel and taken to shore.The Rohingya, numbering at around 1.3 million, have been identified by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. They have been denied citizenship and chased off their land in the latest bout of ethnic violence that left them with little access to education, medical care or freedom to move aroundMyanmar has seen surging Buddhist nationalism in recent years and spates of violence targeting Muslim minorities have raised doubts over its much vaunted reforms after decades of harsh military rule.Many comments posted Saturday by readers on a Myanmar government Facebook page announcing the recent rescue were vitriolic.”Pity. Push them back,” wrote one user. “Myanmar doesn’t want Kalars,” wrote another using a racist term for Muslims in Myanmar.Noble Peace Prize winning opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is yet to comment on the current crisis, a silence that observers attribute to fears over alienating a swathe of the electorate just months ahead of the polls.
