1 600 migrants land in Indonesia, Malaysia
Boats of Muslim Rohingyas come ashore after smugglers abandon them
ABOUT 1 600 Rohingya and Bangladeshi refugees have landed illegally in Malaysia and Indonesia in the last two days, apparently after human traffickers abandoned their virtual prison ships and left them to fend for themselves, officials said today.
One group of about 600 people arrived in the Indonesian coastal province of Aceh on four boats yesterday; at about the same time, 1 018 landed in three boats on the resort island of Langkawi.
The Rohingyas, who are Muslim, have for decades suffered from state-sanctioned discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which considers them illegal settlers from Bangladesh. Attacks on the Rohingyas by Buddhist mobs in the last three years have sparked an exodus to nearby countries.
Langkawi island deputy police chief Jamil Ahmed told The Associated Press the group picked up yesterday comprised 865 men, 52 children and 101 women. Police found a wooden boat trapped in the sand in shallow waters at a beach in Langkawi, capable of holding 350 people. This meant there were at least two other boats but they have not been located yet, he said.
Jamil said a Bangladeshi man told police the boat handlers gave them directions on where to go once they reached Malaysian shores and escaped in other boats. The migrant said they had not eaten for three days.
“There may be more boats coming,” Jamil said.
When the four ships neared Indonesia’s shores yesterday, some passengers jumped into the water and swam, said Steve Hamilton, of the International Organisation for Migration in the capital, Jakarta.
They have been taken to a sports stadium in Lhoksukon to be cared for and questioned, said Lieutenant-Colonel Achmadi, chief of police in the area.
Sick and weak after more than two months at sea, some were getting medical attention.
“We had nothing to eat,” said Rashid Ahmed, a 43-year-old Rohingya man who left Myanmar’s troubled state of Rakhine with his eldest son three months ago.
An estimated 7 000 to 8 000 people are being held in ships in the Malacca Strait and nearby, said Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, which has monitored the movements of Rohingya for more than a decade. She said crackdowns on trafficking syndicates in Thailand and Malaysia have prevented brokers from bringing them to shore. – AP