70 Rohingya refugees saved from drowning
Indonesian search and rescue team finds them standing on capsized boat
Staff from Indonesia’s search and rescue agency saved nearly 70 Rohingya refugees from drowning on Thursday after their flimsy wooden boat capsized in the waters off Aceh province.
The agency sent a ship from Banda Aceh to locate the boat after local fishermen spotted it in difficulties on Wednesday morning. The search and rescue team found the boat and survivors on Thursday morning, after initial difficulties locating the vessel in the choppy waters off the coast of Aceh. “The boat had capsized and all of its passengers were standing on top of the hull,” agency chief Ibnu Harris Al-Hussain said.
“We managed to find 69 people who were alive.” The 42 men, 18 women and nine children were handed over to immigration officials.
It was unclear how many refugees were aboard the small craft when it capsized, but six were initially rescued by local fishermen.
The mostly Muslim Rohingya, referred to by the UN as the “world’s most persecuted minority,” have faced decades of persecution in Myanmar.
More than 730,000 fled to neighboring Bangladesh in 2017, following a brutal crackdown by the Myanmar military that the UN said was genocide. Thousands have been trying to flee the squalid and overcrowded camps in Bangladesh to Southeast Asian countries, with a sharp rise in refugee numbers in Indonesia since November. Indonesia has a history of taking in refugees on humanitarian grounds, but the latest surge of Rohingya arrivals has prompted a backlash on social media and some pushback from Acehnese people. Last year about 569 Rohingya out of nearly 4,500 who attempted it, the highest number in nine years, died or were lost at sea while trying to flee to another country, often on rickety boats.
Indonesia has a history of taking in refugees on humanitarian grounds, but the latest surge of Rohingya arrivals has prompted a backlash on social media and some pushback from Acehnese people.