The Indonesian military has warned local fishermen not to help boats carrying migrants and refugees to land unless they were sinking.
Military Spokesman, Fuad Basya, said on Tuesday in Jakarta that passengers in boats were being deliberately thrown overboard to attract attention.
Intelligence indicates that they deliberately throw people overboard so that they would be saved by fishermen.
So we advise fishermen not to take the refugees unless they are drowning or the boats stall, he said.
He said that thousands of migrants from Myanmar’s Rohingya ethnic minority and Bangladesh were reported to be stranded on boats in South-East Asian waters.
Basya said that the military had deployed four warships and an aircraft to patrol the sea to prevent refugee boats from entering Indonesian territory.
He disclosed that Indonesian fishing boats and marine police rescued no fewer than 800 people late last week from a sinking vessel near the coast.
He said that the military would turn undocumented migrants away unless the Foreign Ministry advised otherwise.
Basya said that thousands of migrants were believed to still be at sea, possibly with little food after their boats were turned away by Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The spokesman said that in some cases, the crew abandoned the vessels.
2015 Leadership Newspaper