Almost 500 Rohingya Muslims who were told they were going to Malaysia arrive in Indonesia

Boats carrying almost 500 members of Myanmar's long-persecuted Rohingya Muslim community washed to shore in western Indonesia yesterday, with some of the people in need of medical attention. Thousands more are believed to be stranded at sea.

The men, women and children arrived on two separate boats, one carrying around 430 people and the other 70, said Steve Hamilton, deputy chief of mission at the International Organisation for Migration in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital.

Teams were racing to Mantang Puntong in Aceh province, where the boats landed, Hamilton said.

Aceh provincial search and rescue chief Budiawan said the group would be taken to a detention centre in north Aceh district, where police and immigration officials would carry out "further processing", which would include investigating their motives.

Darsa, a disaster management agency official who like many Indonesians goes by one name, said the people were told to swim to shore.

"One of the migrants who could speak Malay told me that their agent had told them they were in Malaysia, and to swim to shore," he said.