In May last year, Southeast Asia saw a massive flow of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh making their way across the Andaman Sea to Malaysia.
To be sure, migrants have been making the journey across the sea for years. But the scale of last year’s exodus was unprecedented, and thought to be sparked by the closure of the overland people-smuggling routes through Thailand and into Malaysia.
A humanitarian crisis unfolded as thousands of migrants were left adrift in the sea because the people smugglers literally jumped ship to avoid an ever-tightening vice around their operations.
Meanwhile, governments in the region, including Malaysia’s, and international agencies, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), struggled to adequately respond to a high-seas drama that had grabbed the world’s attention.
The burden of receiving these migrants fell on Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, but there was initial reluctance to take them in. Part of the problem was, who were these people? The first conclusion was that these people were asylum seekers of the persecuted Rohingya minority in Myanmar.