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Monday 11 May 2015 - 10:46 Makkah mean time-22-7-1436
 Jakarta, (INA) - Boats carrying more than 500 members of Myanmar's long-persecuted Rohingya Muslim community washed to shore in western Indonesia on Sunday, with some of the people in need of medical attention, a migration official and a human rights advocate told the local media.
Thousands of the Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar are believed to be stuck at sea on people-smuggler boats, unable to land because of a crackdown on illegal trafficking networks in Thailand and Malaysia, officials and refugee activists said.
The overcrowded boats, carrying nearly 100 women and dozens of children among the refugees, were towed to shore by fishermen after running out of fuel.
The men, women and children arrived on two separate boats, one carrying around 430 people and the other 70, said Steve Hamilton, deputy chief of mission at the International Organization for Migration in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital.
Attacks on the religious minority by Buddhist mobs in the last three years have sparked one of the biggest exodus of boat people since the Vietnam War, sending 100,000 people fleeing, according to Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, which has monitored the movements of Rohingya for more than a decade.
Lewa confirmed that nearly 500 Rohingya landed in Indonesia early Sunday. Some were apparently weak due to lack of food and water, she said.
Described by the United Nations as among the world's most persecuted minorities, the Rohingya Muslims have been targeted in outbreaks in sectarian violence in western Myanmar in recent years.
SM/IINA
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