A Myanmarese would-be immigrant is taken to a hospital after being rescued off the coast in Idi Rayeuk district, Indonesia Aceh province, February 3, 2009.
　　Indonesian authorities rescued more boat people from Myanmar yesterday after finding them floating in a wooden boat off the coast of Aceh after 21 days at sea. Some were in critical condition, officials said.
　　The all-male group of 198, who had not eaten for a week and who included a 13-year-old, was found by local fishermen, vice-head of East Aceh district Nasrudin Abubakar said by telephone.
　　Based on sign language and conversations the men had with fishermen, Abubakar said 22 had died at sea.
　　"They have been sailing for 21 days, using eight to nine wooden boats, but only one wooden boat was saved," Abubakar said. Twenty had been hospitalized and the remainder were being looked after in the district office in Idie Rayeuk, he added.
　　Abdul Munir, another local official, said some of the men were in critical condition when found.
　　"They used boats with no engines and their condition was pitiful," said Munir, adding the men said they had thrown overboard the corpses of their comrades.
　　On Jan 7, a group of 193 Rohingya, a stateless Muslim ethnic minority from northwest Myanmar, were also found at sea in a wooden boat and taken to a naval base in Sabang in Aceh.
　　Indonesia is investigating their case but despite pleas from some of the men that they faced death if sent back to Myanmar, Jakarta has said so far it considers them economic migrants, who would be deported under Indonesian law.
　　The plight of Myanmar's estimated 800,000 Rohingya has been in the headlines since reports of serial abuse by the Thai military against the boat people, who flee in rickety wooden vessels every year in search of better lives.
　　The Thai army has admitted towing hundreds far out to sea before abandoning them, but has insisted they had food and water and denied reports the boats' engines were sabotaged.
　　Of 1,000 Rohingya given such treatment since early December, 550 are thought to have drowned.
　　Details of the latest group's journey were hazy, but a navy official said some stated they were from a group of 1,200 and had left from an island in the southern Thai province of Ranong.
　　"They were from Burma (Myanmar), going to Thailand seeking work, then maybe they were captured by police and put on that island from where they were escorted to the sea," said Tedi Sutardi, head of the navy base in Idi Rayeuk.
　　Some of the men said they had been working as fishermen or bakers in Thailand.
　　Another group of 78 Rohingya in custody in Ranong received a visit from UN refugee officials yesterday but still face almost certain deportation to Myanmar, where they say they face the threat of death.
　　Even though several of the 78 had open wounds on their backs they said were inflicted by Myanmar naval officials, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has insisted they are illegal economic migrants who pose a threat to Thai jobs.
　　The UN's International Labour Organization (ILO) disagreed, saying those comments were a nationalist sop to voters worried about their jobs at a time of rapidly slowing economic growth.
　　"It's clear they are not a threat to any Thai workers," Manolo Abella, a labor migration expert at the ILO in Bangkok said. "The politicians are expected to send messages that they are giving priority to their own nationals."
　　Although most Rohingya are heading for Malaysia, where a sizeable diaspora lives, 1,000 Thais in Ranong protested yesterday against the migrants, saying they would not allow any sort of temporary refugee shelter in the area.
　　According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 230,000 Rohingya now live in Bangladesh, having fled northwest Myanmar after decades of abuse and harassment at the hands of local officials.