Malaysia calls for talks with Myanmar on migrant crisis

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's foreign minister urged Myanmar on Sunday to hold talks on stemming a flood of boat-people to South-east Asia, warning it may otherwise call for an emergency meeting on the crisis.

"If necessary, we will call for an emergency meeting," Foreign Minister Anifah Aman was quoted as saying by the state-run Bernama news agency.

Anifah said Malaysia "hopes Myanmar can sit together to find a solution before it is brought to the international level".

Malaysia had earlier announced that Anifah would meet his Indonesian and Thai counterparts in the coming week about the crisis.

The three nations have sparked outrage by turning away vessels overloaded with migrants from Myanmar's ethnic Rohingya minority and with poor Bangladeshis.

But the situation has also sparked fresh criticism of Myanmar's treatment of its Muslim ethnic Rohingya minority, which is blamed for fuelling the mass migration.

Nearly 3,000 migrants have been rescued or swum ashore in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand in recent days, giving grim accounts of people dying at sea of starvation, sickness or drowning when rickety boats sank.

Activists say thousands more are feared to be drifting helplessly at sea after a Thai crackdown on human trafficking disrupted busy migration routes from the Bay of Bengal to South-east Asia.