Thai Navy Deploy ‘Floating Base’ for Boat People

The Thai navy will deploy a landing-platform dock ship in the Andaman Sea to provide humanitarian assistance to migrants found adrift as a complement to air patrols by the United States.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha told reporters the 4.9-billion-baht (US$163 million) HTMS Ang Thong will serve as a “floating base with medics and police” on board. The vessel, commissioned in 2012, has a displacement of 7,500 tonnes, can carry a crew of 390 and is equipped with a sick bay, a minor-operation room and dentistry suite.

Myanmar Refugee First to Accept Cambodia Resettlement

Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, front left, signs a document together
with Cambodian Interior Minister Sar Kheng, front right, during a ceremony for a controversial
deal to resettle refugees in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sept. 26, 2014 (Source: Voice of America)

April 23 -- Cambodia said it is reviewing the case of the first refugee at the Nauru detention center to volunteer for a controversial Australian resettlement plan.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak Thursday told the VOA Khmer service the first refugee to agree to resettle in Cambodia is an ethnic Rohingya who had fled Myanmar hoping to resettle in Australia.