(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
In the waters off South-East Asia, a deadly drama is playing out for a largely stateless people known as the Rohingya.
The Rohingya come from Myanmar, but have few rights there because the country says, no, they actually come from Bangladesh - or did originally.
Since 1982, they've been denied citizenship in Myanmar, along with many other rights, leading to an unceasing exodus by land and sea to other lands.
Now, as Ron Sutton reports, the issue appears to have reached a crisis point that can no longer be ignored -- and the role Australia plays in the story.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
Chris Lewa has spent more than 15 years advising world bodies and governments on the plight of the persecuted Rohingya people of Myanmar.
But the founder-coordinator of The Arakan Project, based out of neighbouring Thailand, says she has only seen one other threat to the Muslim minority as grim as this.
Up to eight thousand fleeing Rohingya and Bangladeshis are stranded at sea after Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia all pushed them back.
Ms Lewa says she is alarmed by the situation.
"Back in 2009, for a while, the (Thai) port authorities were trying to stop the influx by, basically, also preventing the boats from landing. But they were keeping them at the time on an island and then pushing them back to the high seas, dragging them in boats without engines and then cutting the rope after two or three days at sea. So I think that was probably the worst time for them. But this moment is also quite a critical moment."
The moment has become critical enough that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has now spoken out against the region's refusal to accept the boats.
The UN is calling the Rohingya plight the largest mass exodus of people since the aftermath of the Vietnam War in the 1970s.
Mr Ban's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, says he's called for a regional response.
"The Secretary-General is concerned about the crisis evolving in the Andaman Sea and the Strait of Malacca, where several thousand people are believed to be stranded on smugglers' boats. He's alarmed by reports that some countries may be refusing entries to boats carrying refugees and migrants. The Secretary-General urges governments to ensure that the obligation of 'rescue at sea' is upheld and the prohibition of refoulement is maintained."
Thailand's government has now offered to take in a boatload reportedly stranded at sea for weeks after its navy provided food and water to the hundreds on board.
But a spokesman for Thailand's government says the passengers have decided, instead, to continue travelling to Malaysia.
Malaysia has been the main destination of choice in the immediate region for years for Rohingya fleeing Myanmar.
The dream for many was to then reach Australia, but relatively few could manage that, and mainly Muslim Malaysia has become home to an estimated 30-thousand.
Australia is part of the Rohingya picture, though, and, as a result, is among the countries invited to a May 29th summit Thailand has called to seek a comprehensive response.
And Refugee Council of Australia head Paul Power says that is the moment for the Australian government to stand up and reveal itself.
"I think one of the fundamental questions for the Australian government to be thinking through before that meeting is whether or not it's going to go to that meeting focusing on how boats of Rohingya people can be stopped -- and the government of Thailand appears, unfortunately, to be talking about ways of pushing away, or deflecting or stopping, boats -- or whether Australia is actually going to take a much more effective long-term and constructive approach of actually looking at how to resolve the serious protection concerns that Rohingya people have."
Paul Power says the key to the solution has to come from change in Myanmar.
But Mr Power says the other countries of the region affected by the Rohingya's desperate migration have a role to play and must play it.
"We also, simultaneously, need to look at how those who have fled, because of a very, very clear protection need, to a whole series of countries, we need to look at how they are protected, how Rohingya people who are living in different states in Asia and even people who sought asylum in Australia, how they can actually be given some access to protection and some opportunity to live even temporarily, with legal status and with a legal right to work, while the international community looks at longer-term options."
But in Thailand, Chris Lewa, with The Arakan Project, says, while longer-term answers are needed, immediate action is the first imperative.
She says, since a recent crackdown in Thailand led people smugglers to abandon the very people they were smuggling, there is little time.
"During the time they were under the control of smugglers, they usually received some food and water. But of course, after the crews abandoned the boats, they receive absolutely nothing. And that's why it is very dangerous. Especially, for those to survive without water in this situation, it is extremely critical. And they cannot stay very long like this without any food and water."
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