Asian meeting on boatpeople ends with no big breakthroughs as Myanmar deflects blame

A regional conference called to address the swelling tide of boat people in Southeast Asia ended with no major breakthroughs, with Myanmar deflecting blame for fuelling the crisis and warning that “finger pointing” would not help.

But delegates agreed on one thing: the need to keep talking. The US also prepared to begin surveillance flights in Thai airspace to help search for migrants who might be still stranded, after Thailand gave its permission.

In Myanmar, state television said the navy had seized a boat with 727 migrants off the coast of the Irrawaddy Delta region, the latest vessel found in the last few weeks. The report identified those on board as “Bengalis” – a reference to Bangladeshis – and said they were taken to a nearby island. Forty-five of them were children.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as an indigenous ethnic group and officials routinely refer to them as “Bengalis” from across the border.

Myanmar also arrested a Thai national who allegedly owned a boat that was recently discovered by the Myanmese navy crammed with more than 200 migrants. The 53-year-old man was detained in Yangon, the Global New Light of Myanmar reported, adding that his capture was made after authorities exchanged “information with Thai police”.

The paper said the man from Thailand’s Ranong province operated under a handful of Myanmar aliases, and that his Thai name was Naingnutpatunsantun.