JAKARTA, Dec 1 — Over 110 Rohingya refugees came ashore in Indonesia’s Aceh province yesterday after their boat nearly sank, officials from the United Nations (UN) refugee agency and local government said, as growing numbers arrive by sea in the Southeast Asian country.
The mainly Muslim Rohingya, who are originally from Myanmar and constitute the world’s largest stateless population, usually escape poor conditions in refugee camps on rickety boats to Thailand or Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia between October and April, when the seas are calmer.
About 400 Rohingya arrived by boat last month in Aceh and North Sumatra province.
Mostly women and children, the Rohingya who landed yesterday were brought ashore after their boat ran into difficulties, said East Aceh regional government official Syamsul Bahri, as reported by the ANTARA news agency.
“They were rescued by fishermen because the boat they were on allegedly sustained some damage and nearly sank,” he said.
UNHCR official Faisal Rahman said a total of 116 refugees came ashore in East Aceh’s Birem Bayeun district.
Almost one million Rohingya are living in camps in Bangladesh in what UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has called “the biggest humanitarian refugee camp in the world”.
In Buddhist-majority Myanmar, they are regarded as foreign interlopers from South Asia and are denied citizenship and subjected to abuse.
More than 2,000 Rohingya arrived in Indonesia last year, UNHCR data showed, more than the combined total of arrivals in the previous four years.
Indonesia, which is not a signatory of the UN refugee convention, has said it cannot accommodate refugees, and some Rohingya have faced hostility in the country as locals become frustrated by the increase in arrivals.
— Reuters
