After weeks of drifting adrift at sea on rickety boats, nearly 250 exhausted Rohingya refugees have washed ashore in Indonesia in a matter of days. The fate of 190 others who are missing is feared. The UN refugee agency speaks of one of the deadliest years for Rohingya boat people.
Since August 2017, 700,000 Rohingyas, a Muslim minority, have fled Myanmar because they are victims of violence and persecution there. In total, about one million Rohingyas live in appalling conditions in overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh.
This year, 2,400 Rohingyas have already tried to flee by sea to other countries in Asia. That is five times as many as in 2021. At least 200 refugees have been missing since then. It is feared they have died. In 2013, 900 Rohingyas died or went missing at sea, a year later there were 700.
During Christmas, two groups of Rohingyas washed up in rickety wooden boats on the coast of Indonesia’s Aceh province. On Sunday, 58 men arrived at Indrapatra beach in the fishing village of Ladong. According to a local police chief, the men were starving and severely weakened. Three of them were rushed to hospital.
Engine failed
The men said they had been at sea for more than a month. They planned to land in Malaysia in the hope of a better life and work there. Their boat was damaged and the engine failed, leaving them floating at sea until they came ashore in Aceh, 1,900 kilometers from Bangladesh.
Today, a rickety wooden boat with at least 185 men, women and children stranded near the coastal town of Ujong Pie in Muara Tiga. “They are very weak from dehydration and exhaustion after weeks at sea,” said a police chief.
According to the Indonesian refugee organization Arakan, the boat floated at sea for a month without help. “It is outrageous that they were adrift for almost four weeks, without food and water, or completely ignored and not towed to Indonesia,” said director Chris Lewa.
It is unclear whether these refugees belong to a group of 190 Rohingyas who are missing in the Andaman Sea, west of Thailand. According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, they have been floating at sea in a small fishing boat for a month since they left Bangladesh at the end of November.
Refugees with satellite phones said several of them, including children, had already died. According to reports, their situation is worrying because they do not have enough water and food. It is feared that the boat has sunk.
Not seaworthy
The UNCHR is urging neighboring countries to rescue the refugees. “Many are women and children, with reports of at least 20 people who died on the unseaworthy ship during the voyage,” the organization said.
Thai authorities say they have found four women and a man near Thailand’s Surin Island. Another woman was rescued by fishermen off the Similan Islands.
Last month, 219 Rohingya refugees, including 63 women and 40 children, were rescued off the coast of North Aceh district aboard two shoddy boats.
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