Refugee issue

[Shah Nister Kabir]

In a potential breakthrough in Southeast Asia's humanitarian crisis, Indonesia and Malaysia offered Wednesday to provide temporary shelter to thousands of migrants stranded at sea after weeks of saying they weren't welcome.

But they appealed for international help, saying the crisis was a global, not a regional, problem.

"Indonesia and Malaysia agreed to continue to provide humanitarian assistance to those 7,000 irregular migrants at sea," Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said after a three-way meeting with counterparts from Indonesia and Thailand. The two countries "also agreed to provide them temporary shelter provided that the resettlement and repatriation process will be done in one year by the international community."

Source: AP