They're pushing off! Another wave of Rohingya about to hit Southeast Asia

The first tiny trickle of Rohingya refugees from western Burma have begun to board boats and head for Southeast Asia in a second wave of migration that overwhelmed the region last year.

The Rohingya, the often mistreated and poverty-stricken Muslim community, are once again set to take advantage in the end of the monsoon season, when relatively calm seas gives them a chance to pack boats and head east, looking for asylum.

The refugees most often head for Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia - the former because it is closest to Burma, and the other two because they are both majority-Muslim countries that are most likely to provide shelter.

The preparations to head out of Burma as soon as the winds die down and the seas get flatter follows the pattern set last year, which caused a panic heard round the world.

After several boatloads of refugees were denied asylum, human rights groups and western governments intervened. At a "migrant summit" held in Bangkok last May, countries agreed to open their doors and set up camps to house the migrants. Western countries agreed to fund much of this operation, and in some cases, to consider taking in Rohingya refugees.

The United States has taken 12 refugees from a Thai camp since then. The migrants receive little more than basic food, water and makeshift shelters, as receiving countries make it as uncomfortable as possible to try to stem the refugee flow.

The main problem at present is that the likely receiving countries of Rohingya refugees are once again entirely unprepared for another influx of migrants.

Many of the Rohingya already have fled from decidedly unfriendly Burma, where they are denied citizenship even after generations of residence. They have migrated into Bangladesh, which provides them with no protection or humanitarian assistance.

The United Nations estimated officially that 63,000 Rohingya took part in last year's exodus to Southeast Asia. Vivian Tan, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said recently that while their living conditions are deplorable, most of the migrants are not true refugees.

"Many are leaving Bangladesh for economic reasons," she said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper of Australia.