1,000 refugees arrive in Malaysia and Indonesia after Thai crackdown on human trafficking
Hundreds arriving , many being rescued or swimming ashore, after Thai trafficking crackdown
Malaysia detained more than a thousand Bangladeshi and Rohingya refugees, including dozens of children, police said, a day after authorities rescued hundreds stranded off the coast of Indonesia's western tip.
There has been a huge increase in refugees from impoverished Bangladesh and Myanmar drifting on boats to Malaysia and Indonesia in recent days after Thailand, usually the initial destination in the region's people smuggling network, announced a crackdown on the trafficking.
More than 100 refugees from these countries were found wandering around in southern Thailand last week, after they were apparently abandoned by the smugglers.
An estimated 25,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and Bangladeshis boarded people smugglers' boats in the first three months of this year, twice as many in the same period of 2014, the UN refugee agency has said.
Most travel in rickety traffickers' boats to Thailand, where they are held in squalid jungle camps until a ransom is paid.
Police on the northwest Malaysian island of Langkawi, close to the border with Thailand, said three boats arrived in the middle of the night to unload the refugees, who were taken into custody as they came ashore. One boat was discovered after it got stuck on a breakwater, but the other two vessels escaped. There was no immediate word on the crew.