ACEH JAYA: The bodies of two Rohingya refugees were retrieved and several more were spotted at sea Saturday ( Mar 23 ), local rescuers said, days after a wooden boat believed to be carrying around 150 people capsized, leaving many missing or dead.
The mostly Muslim ethnic Rohingya are persecuted in Myanmar, and hundreds risk their lives each year on long and expensive water adventures, usually in thin canoes, to try to achieve Malaysia or Indonesia.
Indonesian volunteers called off the hunt for any remaining Rohingya refugees on Friday despite information from some of the individuals that dozens of people were swept aside on Wednesday when their vessel and another trying to help them capsized.
More than half a hundred bodies were spotted by sailors on Saturday, but only two bodies were retrieved, officials said.
” We evacuated just two persons. Both were ladies”, Mirza Safrinadi, Aceh Jaya Search and Rescue Operation commander, told investigators.
” It’s confirmed, they are Rohingyas. According to the fishery knowledge, there are several more patients who drowned”.
United Nations refugee agency ( UNHCR ) protection associate Faisal Rahman told AFP” two ( bodies were ) already evacuated, the rest are still in the process”.
On Thursday, officials staged a remarkable save of 69 Rohingya who had been adrift at sea for months before the boat capsized, with several found clinging to the deck of the rejected vehicle. Six people were rescued by sailors on Wednesday.
From late- November to later January, 1, 752 Rohingya migrants, mainly women and children, landed in the Indian regions of Aceh and North Sumatra, according to the UNHCR.
The UN company said it was the biggest flow into the Muslim- lot state since 2015, driven by worsening conditions in dirty camps in Bangladesh and the continuing threat of violence in the Rohingya’s local Myanmar.