[JURIST] Foreign ministers from Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia issued a joint statement [text] Wednesday addressing the recent influx of migrants arriving to their respective nations and agreeing to take in migrants in the most humanitarian fashion. While the countries have agreed on taking in migrants awaiting on ships, they have have condemned both human trafficking and smuggling that may be taking place and plan to bring to justice all those involved with both crimes. In taking these measures to welcome the numerous people at sea, both Malaysia and Indonesia have called upon the international community to help resettle the current migrants seeking to enter the three nations. For the meantime, both Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed to provide assistance to the 7,000 migrants currently still at sea.

Mass migrations have been occurring in Europe as well as Southeast Asia. Refuges from the conflicts in the Africa and the Middle East have generated a tremendous humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean with hundreds of deaths in recent months. In April top UN human rights officials and the International Organization for Migration issued a joint statement [JURIST report] calling on the EU to create a new rescue operation program for migrants attempting to traverse the Mediterranean and to commit to greater receipt of refugees. Also in April UN rights experts warned [JURIST report] the EU that repression of irregular migration cannot be the only solution to the recurrent grave problem of masses of people drowning at sea. In February Amnesty International criticized [JURIST report] the EU’s failure to prevent migrant casualties at sea. The statement came amid reports that as many as 300 migrants had died off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa.