The United Nations says up to 8,000 people fleeing persecution in Bangladesh and Myanmar are stranded in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea – cast adrift as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand refuse to allow them into their countries.
Reporters managed to reach a stranded boat with hundreds of desperate Rohingya migrants on board in the Andaman Sea.
The migrants remained in limbo, after they reportedly left Thai waters on Friday bound for Indonesia.
Thai officials gave food and water to the refugees who say they have been on the overcrowded boat for several weeks. They were abandoned by their crew and have no food or water.
Thai officials said they supplied the refugees with food packages and fixed the engine. The boat then left Thai waters bound for Indonesia along the route to Aceh.
The Rohingya - a persecuted Muslim minority in Myanmar - told Thai officials they were headed for Indonesia because it's clear they cannot get to Malaysia.
But Indonesia’s policy to block entry to such vessels means their fate remains uncertain.
The boat, with around 300 people on board including young children, was found drifting in Thai waters on Thursday.
A BBC news crew found the boat before it left Thai waters. Those on board said 10 people had died and their bodies had been thrown overboard.
The visibly emaciated passengers were pleading for help.
“They say they are from Myanmar, from Burma. They are Rohingya Muslims and they’re absolutely desperate and hungry and thirsty, said BBC journalist Jonathan Head.
More than 700 migrants rescued off Indonesia
Meanwhile, more than 700 migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh were brought ashore to the east coast of Aceh on Indonesia's island of Sumatra on Friday, a search and rescue official said.
"The latest information we have is about 794 people were found in the middle of the sea and brought ashore by fishermen at 5am," Khairul Nova, the official in the town of Langsa in Aceh, told Reuters.
"They are now in a warehouse by the port as a temporary arrangement," Nova added.
UN warns of humanitarian diseaster
The United Nations has warned there could be a massive humanitarian disaster in southeast Asia, if nothing is done to stop the growing migrant crisis there.
Malaysia has turned away two vessels carrying hundreds of migrants, while one boat has turned up in Thai waters, as critics accused southeast Asian governments of playing a game of "human ping pong" with the lives of desperate boatpeople.
Malaysia and Indonesia have vowed to bar ships bearing desperate migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh.
The UN refugee agency and rights groups say thousands of men, women and children are believed stuck out at sea and at risk of starvation and illness after a Thai police crackdown disrupted well-worn people-smuggling routes.
But Malaysian patrol ships intercepted two migrant vessels, carrying a combined 600 people, on Wednesday off the northern Malaysian islands of Penang and Langkawi, said an official.
Rights groups say Thailand - which has called a May 29 regional meeting on the issue - also has a policy of not allowing such boats to berth.
"The Thai, Malaysian, and Indonesian navies should stop playing a three-way game of human ping pong, and instead should work together to rescue all those on these ill-fated boats," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch.
"The world will judge these governments by how they treat these most vulnerable men, women, and children."
Amnesty International said it was "harrowing to think that hundreds of people are right now drifting in a boat perilously close to dying, without food or water, and without even knowing where they are."
