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Malaysia willing to take refugees

On Dec 18 the state of Malaysia declared to be willing to take the 40 Rohingya refugees rescued by the "Nosco Victory" floating in the waters off the coast of Myanmar. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had appealed to Singapore authorities to allow the rescued passengers to disembark and was in dialogue with the Malaysian government on the matter. The crew of the cargo vessel had picked up the survivors on Dec 5 during a routine journey to Singapore after the ship had dropped off a cargo of iron ore at Bangladesh. At about 10 a.m., the crew spotted five men, mostly naked, struggling in the water without any life vests in the Bay of Bengal. The crew threw floats attached to a long rope to the five men and pulled them on board the ship.When the master informed his Hanoi head office, he was instructed to continue with the search-and-rescue operation to save as many survivors as possible. More than 40 people were seen struggling in the water. Some of the survivors were drifting into unconsciousness after being pulled out and the crew members performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation to revive them. They continued the rescue until about 6 p.m. when the search had to call off as it became too dark. The refugees' overcrowded boat, with about 250 people on board, had sunk in the Bay of Bengal while en route from Bangladesh to Malaysia. Aother nine survivors were rescued by another ship. The rest, including women and children, are believed to have drowned. After the rescue, the "Nosco Victory" has been stranded in international waters outside Singapore for about a week as countries in the region refused to allow the ship into their waters.The ship was meanwhile running out of food to feed his crew of 24, let alone the refugees, some of whom were weak and sickly after part of them refused to eat. A third of the 40 survivors are refusing to eat anything and many of them were falling sick, drifting in and out of consciousness. Acting on instructions from his head office, the captain had decided to sail for Singapore as planned, despite ports in Myanmar, Bangladesh and India being nearer. When the ship approached Singapore waters on Dec 9, the master was told by Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) that he could not dock in Singapore because he could provide only "sketchy" information about the passengers it had picked up off the coast of Myanmar. After being denied entry into Singapore, the master tried to contact authorities in Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Indonesia for assistance, but his requests were turned down repeatedly.

Rescued refugees stranded off Singapore

Singapore has denied entry to the "Nosco Victory" cargo ship carrying 40 Burmese asylum seekers who were plucked from the sea after their boatm the "Nayou" sank in the Bay of Bengal. The asylum seekers are believed to have been in the water for 30 hours before the "Nosco Victory" rescued them on Dec 5, meaning they would have been in a distressed state. They are believed to be still aboard the ship which is actually anchored off Singapore. Their condition is unknown. The Nosco Victory's captain ignored advice by Indian rescue authorities to take the asylum seekers to the "nearest port of safety", which probably would have been a Bangladeshi port. The ship was due to dock in Singapore on Dec 9. The asylum seekers are believed to Rohingyas, a Muslim minority who were fleeing western Burma, where ethnic violence erupted in June. They were plucked from the sea after the overcrowded Bangladesh-flagged "Nayou" sank at about midday on December 4. Up to 160 other Rohingya aboard the ship were believed to have drowned. The "Nayou" was en route to Muslim-majority Malaysia, where there is a large Rohingya population.