MORE than 370 migrants including 31 children who were stranded at sea for up to four months have been rescued and taken to Indonesia.
The arrivals were the latest in a stream of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants to reach shore in a growing crisis confronting South East Asia.
Some 102 people crammed on board one of the boats were said by search and rescue workers to be suffering from dehydration and starvation.
Those on board that boats included 26 women and 31 children. Another 272 migrants later arrived on eight Indonesian fishing boats.
One of the migrants, 30-year-old Ubaydul Haque, said the ship’s engine failed and the captain fled.
He added that they were at sea for four months before Indonesian fishermen found them and took them to shore.
Mr Haque said: “We ran out of food – we wanted to enter Malaysia, but we were not allowed.”
It came as Indonesia and Malaysia agreed to provide temporary shelter to the stranded migrants, in what was the first breakthrough in the crisis.
The announcement was made by Malaysian foreign minister, Anifah Aman, after an emergency meeting with counterparts from Indonesia and Thailand.
Most of the migrants are the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority from Burma and others are Bangladeshis fleeing poverty.