Myanmar's delegate to talks in Bangkok on Southeast Asia's migrant crisis on Friday rebuked the U.N.'s refugee agency for calling on the country to recognize the Muslim Rohingya minority as citizens to stem their exodus from its shores.

On "this issue of illegal migration of boat people, you cannot single out my country," Myanmar delegate Foreign Ministry Director-General Htin Lynn said in stern response to a UNHCR plea to address the root causes of the ongoing migration crisis including the statelessness issue.

Aung San Suu Kyi was once an unassailable champion of Myanmar's powerless. But the opposition leader's refusal to speak up for a persecuted Muslim minority at the heart of a migrant crisis has cast doubt over her moral force -- and even earned a gentle rebuke from fellow Nobel laureate the Dalai Lama.

Images of hungry migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh hauled from vessels to Southeast Asian shores after months at sea have spurred calls for immediate humanitarian action to be matched by moves to address the root causes of the crisis.

Malaysia said Thursday it believes 139 bodies are buried in marked graves at remote camps used by people-smugglers on the Thai border, wrapped in white cloth after Muslim rites.

The abandoned sites were discovered on the weekend, escalating a crisis that erupted earlier this month when a Thai crackdown on trafficking networks left thousands of desperate people stranded at sea on rickety boats.

Malaysia's government has expressed shock at finding human-trafficking camps and graves near the Thai border, but for local villagers like Sani Hashim the human clues were right there in plain sight.

Sani is one of many residents of the remote area in Perlis state who say that starving illegal migrants -- some bearing signs of mistreatment -- have for years staggered from nearby thickly jungled hills, where a network of graves and camps was recently found.

Philippine military and commercial aircraft will keep flying over disputed areas in the South China Sea despite Chinese warnings over the airspace, President Benigno Aquino said on Monday.

"We will still fly the routes that we fly based on the international law from the various conventions we entered into," Aquino told reporters when asked whether the Philippines accepted China's position.

A total of 139 grave sites and 28 human-trafficking camps have been found in a remote northern Malaysian border region, the country's top police official told reporters Monday.

National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar revealed the findings at a press conference a day after the government announced the discovery of camps and graves, the first such sites found in Malaysia since a regional human-trafficking crisis erupted earlier this month.

Malaysia said Sunday it had found mass graves feared to contain the bodies of Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants at the center of a regional human-trafficking crisis.

Home Minister Zahid Hamidi was quoted by The Star newspaper's website as saying the graves were found near suspected detention camps run by people-traffickers.

A group of migrants recently rescued by Myanmar will be deported to Bangladesh, officials confirmed Saturday, as the United Nations chief called on regional nations to prioritize saving the lives of those still stranded at sea.

Southeast Asia is currently battling an exodus of boat people fleeing persecution and poverty, with up to 2,000 vulnerable migrants thought to be stranded in the Bay of Bengal, many at the mercy of ruthless people smugglers.

Australia hit back Friday at criticism of its response to thousands of migrants stranded at sea in Southeast Asia, saying it was generous towards refugees in the region.

When asked Thursday whether Australia would offer to resettle the migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar's oppressed Rohingya minority, Prime Minister Tony Abbott replied, "nope, nope, nope".

Seventeen Bangladeshis finally returned home Thursday after being thrown off a boat bound for Malaysia and forced to swim two hours to shore, after attempting to join a migrant exodus, officials said.

The Bangladeshis had spent two months aboard the boat in the Bay of Bengal packed with migrants fleeing poverty to Southeast Asia, before they were thrown overboard in the early hours of Thursday.