Indonesian authorities yesterday said that they would push a boat containing 120 Rohingya back into international waters, despite calls from the UN refugee agency to allow the passengers to disembark after being adrift for days off the country’s northernmost province of Aceh.
The boat is reportedly leaking and has a damaged engine, is floating in the open sea in harsh weather, and might be at risk of capsizing, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Tuesday.
“UNHCR is deeply concerned for the safety and lives of those onboard,” it said in a statement. “To prevent needless loss of life, we strongly urge the Indonesian government to allow safe disembarkation immediately.”
Photo: AFP
The boat was first sighted by fishers on Sunday about 96km off the coast of Bireuen, a district in Aceh province, said Badruddin Yunus, the leader of the local fishing community.
Fishers were unable to tow the broken-down wooden boat, but had provided food, water and clothes to the hungry passengers, including 60 women, 51 children and nine men, he said.
“Their condition looks weak, but fine,” Yunus said, adding that the refugees said they wanted to go to Malaysia and had been at sea for 28 days before their boat’s engine broke.
Local officials, supported by the police and navy, have provided food, medicine, a new boat engine and a technician to help repair the boat, and they would push it back to international waters once it is fixed, said Bireuen district chief Muzakkar Gani, citing concerns that some of the refugees might have COVID-19.
Gani said local officials were still waiting for directives from the central government in Jakarta, but in the meantime planned to repair the boat so that the refugees could sail to Malaysia.
Officials planned to push the boat out of Indonesian waters, Aceh Police spokesperson Winardy said. “We will repair their boat and give them fuel, and only monitor its movement to Malaysia.”
Groups of Rohingya have attempted to leave the crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh and travel by sea in hazardous voyages to other Muslim-majority countries in the region.
Muslim-dominated Malaysia has been a common destination for boats, and traffickers have promised the refugees a better life there, but many Rohingya who land in Malaysia face detention.
Although Indonesia is not a signatory to the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention, the UNHCR said that a 2016 presidential regulation provides a national legal framework governing the treatment of refugees on boats in distress near Indonesia and to help them disembark.
These provisions have been implemented for years, most recently in June when 81 Rohingya refugees were rescued off the coast of the East Aceh regency.
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