'Indonesia believes most migrants at sea are Bangladeshi'

Indonesia has told Australia that most of the migrants stranded at sea in South-east Asia are illegal labourers from Bangladesh, not oppressed Muslim Rohingya, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in comments published on Saturday.

More than 3,500 migrants have swum to shore or been rescued off the coasts of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh since a Thai crackdown on human-trafficking in early May threw the illicit trade into chaos, the newspaper said quoting AFP.

Speaking to The Weekend Australian newspaper, Bishop said Indonesia estimated that only 30 per cent to 40 per cent of the thousands still stranded at sea were Rohingya - an impoverished Muslim community from Myanmar's western Rakhine state.

"They (Indonesia) believe there are about 7,000 people at sea (and) they think about 30 to 40 percent are Rohingya, the rest are Bangladeshi; and they are not, in Indonesia's words, asylum-seekers, they are not refugees - they are illegal labourers. They've been promised or are seeking jobs in Malaysia," Bishop said.

"They said the Rohingya have gone to Bangladesh and have mixed up with the Bangladeshis who are coming to Malaysia in particular for jobs."