Indonesia rescuers save 69 Rohingya refugees at sea
Dozens of Rohingya refugees stranded on the rusty hull of a capsized ship were rescued on Thursday after the dehydrated and sunburnt group had drifted at sea for more than a day.
The group included 69 men, women and children, some of whom had been at sea for weeks on a rickety wooden boat from squalid camps in Bangladesh, where many of them have fled.
The reddish hull of the vessel poking out of the water was the Rohingyas’ only refuge after their wooden boat and another vessel trying to help them both capsized on Wednesday.
The second boat, belonging to local fishermen, overturned when the refugees tried to climb on it in a panic.
“Why did the boat capsize? There was heavy rain,” said a 27yearold survivor who gave his name as Dostgior in broken Indonesian.
Survivors estimated that about 150 Rohingya had been on board, with dozens swept away, said local fishermen and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in what would represent another tragedy at sea for the heavily persecuted Myanmar minority.
“The total victims rescued [alive] is 69,” the local search and rescue agency said in a statement, adding that nine children, 42 men and 18 women were saved.
The authorities were taking them to shore in West Aceh’s capital Meulaboh on Thursday after spotting them in waters off the coast, the local search and rescue agency said. The boats sank 16 nautical miles (30 kilometers) off the coast of West Aceh.
Thousands of Rohingya risk their lives each year on long and expensive sea journeys, often on flimsy boats, to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia.
But they often do so during Indonesia’s monsoon season, when conditions can drag them to land, making their voyages even more hazardous.
Agence FrancePresse (AFP) footage from the boat showed men, women and children being taken to safety by the local search and rescue agency.
“I’d been at sea for 15 days, but there are others here who have been here longer than that. Some have been here for a month,” said Dostgior.
The refugee said he had traveled from Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.
“In Bangladesh, I met someone who could take me to Indonesia.
My goal in going to Indonesia is to pay someone to take me to Malaysia. Once in Malaysia, I will pay someone else to enter,” he told AFP.
Many Rohingya make the perilous 4,000kilometer journey (2,500 miles) from Bangladesh to Malaysia, fueling a multimilliondollar humansmuggling operation that often involves stopovers in Indonesia.
‘Couldn’t find them’
Other refugees said they were from Myanmar and had tried to reach Thailand but were rejected, West Aceh fishing community secretarygeneral Pawang Amiruddin told AFP on Wednesday.
Faisal Rahman, the UNHCR’s protection associate, said it was waiting for the evacuation team to arrive back to land to get “clear and firm data” on those rescued.
On Wednesday, six Rohingya from the same vessel were rescued by fishermen.
One of those survivors said dozens of refugees had been swept away by currents and were missing or feared dead.
“He said the boat took 151 people. Once the boat capsized, approximately about 50 people maybe missing and passed away,” Rahman said. “We are still coordinating with respective government agencies to do our best to save as many lives as possible.”
Local police and the regional government did not respond to requests for comment.
From midNovember to late January, 1,752 refugees, mostly women and children, landed in western Indonesia’s Aceh and North Sumatra provinces, the UNHCR said. Hundreds remain in shelters.
The agency said it was the biggest influx into the Muslimmajority country since 2015.
Some Rohingya boats landing in Aceh in recent months have been pushed back out to sea as sentiment toward the minority group shifts in the ultraconservative Indonesian province.
Many Acehnese, who themselves have memories of decades of bloody conflict, are sympathetic to the plight of their fellow Muslims.
But others say their patience has been tested, claiming the Rohingyas consume scarce resources and occasionally come into conflict with locals.