(MENAFN- Arab News) YANGON: Myanmar's navy seized a boat packed with 727 people off the country's southern coast on Friday the government said about a week after it found a similar boat it said carried around 200 Bangladeshi migrants.
The navy found the migrants crammed on a fishing boat in its waters the Ministry of Information said in a Facebook post Friday adding the would-be 'Bengali' migrants had been towed to an island.
Though the nationality of the people on the boat was unclear but the ministry described them as 'Bengalis' using the term the government uses to describe the country's persecuted Rohingya minority as well as immigrants from Bangladesh.
A senior official at the ministry could not be immediately reached for comment.
More than 3000 migrants have landed in Indonesia and Malaysia since Thailand launched a crackdown on human trafficking gangs this month. About 2600 are believed to be still adrift in boats relief agencies have said.
'Altogether 727 people 608 Bengali men 74 women and 45 children in a fishing boat have been arrested as a Myanmar Navy ship found them this morning in the delta' the statement said.
The discovery comes as a Myanmar delegation joins an international conference in Bangkok to address a migrant crisis that has erupted since the start of May leaving around 3500 people on Thai Malaysian and Indonesia soil and an estimated 2500 more stranded at sea.