Missing migrant boat found as two countries offer shelter

Migrants found by the BBC last week drifting off the coast of Thailand have been rescued by Indonesian fishermen.

A BBC reporter on the boat, first spotted last Thursday when it was stranded with a broken engine, says it is filthy and covered in insects.

It was one of many boats carrying thousands of Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants adrift in the Andaman Sea.

Amid a mounting humanitarian crisis, Malaysia and Indonesia have said they will offer migrants temporary shelter.

Foreign ministers from the two countries plus Thailand have been holding emergency talks in Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpu
   Speaking after the talks ended, Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said his country and Indonesia would stop towing the boats into other territories as navies have been doing in recent days.

He said we "need to assist these people" and that "because of the conditions they are experiencing we are willing to take them on to our shores

However, he said they would not actively search for migrants, only provide shelter if they came ashore, and then under the condition that the international community would help to repatriate or resettle them within a year.

Thailand was apparently not part of the announcement and has not yet commented.

'Towed out'

The migrant boat which arrived off Indonesia's northern Aceh province on Wednesday, was first spotted last on Thursday.

The migrants said they had been repeatedly towed out to sea by regional navies

Those on board told the BBC's Jonathan Head at the time that they had been abandoned by a people smuggler and had little food and water. The boat then went missing.

The migrants have now told activists they were towed out to sea three times by the Thai and Malaysian navies. They said they had been given food and water by Thai officials.

The BBC's Xinyan Yu, who is on board the trawler, says it is filthy and covered in bottles of pepper sauce, dirty plates and plastic bags of instant noodles. The smell is overwhelming she adds.

More than 400 people were rescued off Aceh on Wednesday. More than 2,000 people have now come to shore in that region alone.