Almost 300 Rohingya refugees believed to have been at sea for six months landed in Indonesia’s Aceh Province early yesterday, Indonesian authorities said.
Acehnese police said a wooden boat carrying the Rohingya was spotted by local fishermen several kilometers off the coast of Lhokseumawe, before landing at Ujung Blang Beach just after midnight.
“There are 297 Rohingya according to the latest data, among them 181 women and 14 children,” Iptu Irwansya, a local police chief, told reporters.
Photo: Reuters / Antara Foto / Rahmad
Junaidi Yahya, head of the Red Cross in Lhokseumawe, said the group was currently being held in a temporary location.
“We hope they can be moved to the evacuation center today, but their health, especially related to COVID-19, is our main concern,” Yahya said.
Among the group was one sick 13-year-old, who police said was taken to hospital in an ambulance.
Images of the Rohingya arrivals show lines of women in masks carrying their possessions in plastic bags, and men huddled on the floor of a thatched roof shelter.
Yesterday’s arrival follows the arrival of another vessel in late June when Acehnese fishermen rescued more than 100 Rohingya refugees, including 79 women and children, after Indonesian authorities had initially threatened to push them back.
Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, a non-profit group that focuses on the Rohingya crisis, said the passengers that arrived in Aceh yesterday had set sail from southern Bangladesh at the end of March or early April, bound for Malaysia.
However, Malaysian and Thai authorities pushed them back, as borders tightened due to the coronavisus pandemic, she said.
“The smugglers seemed to not want to try to disembark them because not everyone had paid... They were basically keeping them hostage on the boat,” Lewa said.
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