US and Japan offer help to solve Rohingya issue, says Najib

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SENDAI: The United States and Japan have indicated their willingness to help Malaysia and ASEAN solve the issue of ethnic Rohingya refugees.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the Malaysian government would discuss further on the type of assistance needed.

To a question if the US was willing to take the Rohingyas as it did with the Vietnamese boat people from 1970s-2001, Najib said they had indicated that they would consider such a move.

“The Rohingya boat people is a serious matter. As we want to solve it through ASEAN solutions, our capacity is limited and we need international assistance,” he said after having a dialogue with students at the Tohoku
University here.

The first boat people from Vietnam landed on the east coast of Malaysia in May 1975, and more than 255,000 were given temporary asylum in Malaysia, before most of them resettled in western countries and last camp closed in 2001.

Currently, Kedah is facing a flood of illegal Rohingya and Bangladeshi immigrants when 1,158 of them landed in Langkawi on May 11.-Bernama