Second group of Rohingya refugees lands on Indonesia beach after weeks at sea

For the second time in two days, a group of weak and exhausted Rohingya Muslims landed on a beach in Indonesia’s northernmost province of Aceh on Monday after weeks at sea, officials said.

At least 185 men, women and children disembarked from a rickety wooden boat that evening at Ujong Pie beach in Muara Tiga, a coastal village in Aceh’s Pidie district, said local police chief Fauzi, who went by one name.

“He was very weak from dehydration and exhaustion after weeks at sea,” Fauzi said.

He was taken to the village hall and will remain there while receiving assistance from residents, health workers and others.

Fauzi said immigration officials and police were trying to identify the refugees to determine if they were from a group of 190 Rohingya reported by the United Nations to be adrift in small boats in the Andaman Sea within a month.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Friday urged countries to rescue the refugees, saying reports showed they were in poor conditions with insufficient food or water.

“Many women and children, with reports of up to 20 people dying on unfit ships during the journey,” the agency said.

Also on Friday, another group of 58 Rohingya – all men – arrived in Ladong village in Aceh Besar district.

In search of a better life

Azharul Husna, who heads the Aceh branch of KontraS, an Indonesian human rights group, said on Monday that the people in the group all brought UNHCR cards from refugee camps in Bangladesh and went to seek a better life in Malaysia.

Citing one of them, Husna said 58 refugees left Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where more than 700,000 Rohingya from Myanmar had fled, to work on plantations in Malaysia. The boat was damaged and the engine died, until they drifted in the sea until they landed in Aceh.

Since 2017, Myanmar’s security forces have been accused of mass rape, killing and burning the homes of thousands of Rohingya, fleeing to Bangladesh and beyond.

Malaysia has become a common destination for many refugees who arrive by boat, but are also detained in the country.

Although neighboring Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, UNHCR said the 2016 presidential decree provides a legal framework that regulates the treatment of refugees in distressed boats near Indonesia and helps them disembark.

Last month, 219 Rohingya refugees were rescued off the coast of Utara Aceh Regency on two rickety boats.