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Hundreds rescued as Myanmar offers first help in migrant crisis

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AFP) - Hundreds of starving boatpeople were rescued off Indonesia on Wednesday as Myanmar for the first time offered to help ease a regional migrant crisis blamed in part on its treatment of the ethnic Rohingya minority.

The change of tune from Yangon came as the foreign ministers of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand -- facing global criticism for turning away rickety boats packed with starving migrants -- gathered for talks on the issue.

Following appeals by UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Washington last week for the Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants to be rescued, Pope Francis issued his first comments on the issue Tuesday.

"We think of the poor Rohingya of Myanmar. As they leave their land to escape persecution they do not know what will happen to them," he said in a mass at the Vatican, likening the plight of the Rohingya to that of Christian and ethnic Yazidi people brutalised by the Islamic State group.

Nearly 3,000 boatpeople already have swum to shore or been rescued off Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand over the past 10 days after a Thai crackdown disrupted long-established smuggling routes, prompting some of the gangs responsible to abandon their human cargo at sea.

A total of 433 migrants believed to be from Myanmar were rescued in the early hours of Wednesday off Aceh in Indonesia, local officials and fisherman said.

"Their condition is very weak. Many are sick, they told me that some of their friends died from starvation," said Teuku Nyak Idrus, a local fishermen involved in the rescue.

Those rescued included 30 children and 26 women, search and rescue officials said.

With food and water supplies running low, some boats have drifted back and forth as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand refused to accept them, drawing international condemnation.

Myanmar also has come under growing pressure to help stem the outflow of Muslim Rohingya, who are fleeing their homes in the country’s western Rakhine state after years of violence and discrimination at the hands of the Buddhist majority. Most head for Muslim-majority Malaysia.

http://www.nation...60516.html