Aid ship allowed into Chittagong but hits another snag

BAY OF BENGAL: Rohingya aid ship Nautical Aliya has the green light to enter Chittagong in Bangladesh, but no permission has been given for those aboard to disembark.

“Permission to enter is there. We are negotiating on how many heads can go down,” aid mission opera- tions director Datuk Mohd Farid Hassan said yesterday evening.

Organisers are en route to Bangladesh after dropping off about 222 tonnes of cargo for Rohingya at Yangon’s Thilawa Port on Thursday and Friday.

The ship is carrying 182 passengers (including media) and 17 crew members, as well as about 2,100 tonnes of aid for Rohingya in Bangladesh.

Earlier yesterday, mission organi- sers told a press conference that the ship was expected to enter Chittagong port at about 4pm tomorrow.

Aid mission co-chief Datuk Seri Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim said he hoped Bangladesh would allow the passengers to disembark and deliver succour at the refugee camps in the country’s south.

“We really hope approval will be given (today),” he said.

He added that the mission was asking for four days to transport and hand out the aid at the camps near Cox’s Bazar and Teknaf, and it would leave after that.

Bangladesh previously did not allow the ship, commissioned by the Malaysian-led team, to enter its waters.

It gave approval later and then stopped the ship from docking at the country’s southern point in Teknaf.

It offered three alternatives, including Chittagong which the organisers accepted, but did not allow the volunteers aboard to set foot on land.

A Malaysian team, with two MPs, is expected to negotiate with Bangladeshi officials in Dhaka soon.

As of 5.30pm local time, the ship was about 18km off Myanmar’s south-western coast.