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Hundreds of starving boatpeople were rescued off Indonesia on Wednesday as Myanmar for the first time offered to help ease a regional migrant crisis blamed in part on its treatment of the ethnic Rohingya minority, AFP reports. 

The change of tune from Yangon came as the foreign ministers of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand -- facing global criticism for turning away rickety boats packed with starving migrants -- gathered for talks on the issue near Kuala Lumpur.

Following appeals by UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Washington last week for the Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants to be rescued, Pope Francis issued his first comments on the issue Tuesday, likening the plight of the "poor Rohingya" to that of Christian and ethnic Yazidi people brutalised by the Islamic State group.

Around 3,000 boatpeople already have swum to shore or been rescued off Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand over the past 10 days after a Thai crackdown disrupted long-established smuggling routes, prompting some of the gangs responsible to abandon their human cargo at sea.

A total of 426 migrants believed to be from Myanmar were rescued in the early hours of Wednesday off Aceh in Indonesia, local officials said.

"Their condition is very weak. Many are sick, they told me that some of their friends died from starvation," said Teuku Nyak Idrus, a local fishermen involved in the rescue.

Those saved in the Malacca Strait between Malaysia and Indonesia's huge Sumatra island included 30 children and 26 women, he added.