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Malaysia turns back boats carrying 300 Myanmar migrants

The country has in recent years rounded up thousands in crowded detention centres as it cracks down on undocumented migrants

Malaysia's coast guard escorted away from its waters two boats carrying almost 300 undocumented Myanmar migrants found in a state of exhaustion for lack of food and water, a top agency official said.

Authorities gave the migrants food supplies and clean drinking water after the boats were discovered on Friday two nautical miles southwest off the coast of the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi, the agency said.

"We are also closely co-operating with Thai enforcement agencies to obtain additional information on the movement of the boats," its Director-General Mohd Rosli Abdullah said in a statement on Saturday.

The coast guard did not say if the migrants were Rohingya, a mainly Muslim minority whose members often flee majority Buddhist Myanmar, where they are seen as foreign interlopers from South Asia, who are denied citizenship and face abuse.

On Friday, Malaysian police had detained 196 undocumented Myanmar migrants after their boat landed on a beach at Langkawi. Police said all the migrants, 71 children and 57 women among them, were believed to be ethnic Rohingya.

All the detained migrants were taken to be documented and their health checked, the police said in a separate statement on Friday.

For years many Rohingya have embarked in rickety wooden boats to try and reach neighbouring countries, such as Muslim-majority Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh, as well as Thailand, chiefly during the calmer seas from October to April.

Malaysia, which does not recognise refugee status, has in recent years turned away boats carrying Rohingya refugees and rounded up thousands in crowded detention centres as it cracks down on undocumented migrants.