INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE NECESSARY TO COERCE MYANMAR TO ADDRESS ROHINGYA ISSUE

Jakarta, May 20 (Antara)- The international community should pressure Myanmar to address the problem faced by its Rohingya minority trying to escape discrimination they face in their own country, an official stated. Indonesia will push for discussions on the Rohingya issue in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) forum, Dewi Fortuna Anwar, the deputy at the vice presidential secretariat, noted here on Wednesday. "The refugees are seeking better opportunities and want to lead a better life," she emphasized. She affirmed that the international community should pressure Myanmar to offer solutions. More than 1.5 thousand asylum seekers, mostly Rohingyas from Myanmar and some Bangladeshis, were stranded in Indonesian waters after being adrift for over three months at sea while attempting to reach Malaysia or Australia. Some 1,418 asylum seekers are now being accommodated in North Aceh, Langsa, and Aceh Tamiang Districts in Aceh Province, and 96 others in Langkat District, North Sumatra Province. The migrants, including women and children, were suffering from severe dehydration and starvation when they were rescued by the local fishermen. Several of them have been admitted to the local health community centers for intensive medical treatment. As over 1.5 thousand asylum seekers are already at Indonesia's doorstep, the government has pledged to offer temporary shelters to them. "We are helping them on humanitarian grounds. Of course, we provided them with food at the shelter," M. Jusuf Kalla remarked in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, on May 18, 2015. In a joint statement issued on May 19, 2015, the UN High Commissioners for Refugees and for Human Rights, in cooperation with the UN Special Representative for International Migration and Development and the Director-General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), urged regional leaders to work with the ASEAN to respond to what they called "grave events" in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea in recent days involving migrants and refugees on boats attempting to move in search of safety and dignity, fleeing persecution, abject poverty, deprivation, discrimination, and abuse. "Such perilous journeys, whether by land, sea, or air, have become a global phenomenon," said António Guterres, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, Peter Sutherland, and William Lacy Swing, who all signed a statement noting that 88 thousand people had attempted to migrate by boats in Southeast Asia since 2014. "Nearly one thousand people are believed to have perished at sea due to precarious conditions faced during their voyage, and an equal number due to mistreatment and privation at the hands of traffickers and abusive smugglers," they noted in a statement posted on the UN News Center website.