SABANG: More than 200 Rohingya refugees were huddled on the beaches of a remote Indonesian island Wednesday (Nov 22) after weeks adrift on a wooden boat, as authorities rejected locals’ efforts to push the members of the Myanmar minority back to sea.
The latest arrivals were part of more than 1,000 desperate and exhausted members of the group who landed on the shores of Aceh province in western Indonesia in the last week.
Thousands of the mostly Muslim Rohingya risk their lives each year making sea journeys from refugee camps in Bangladesh, often in flimsy boats, to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia.
The latest group of 219 refugees, which included 72 men, 91 women and 56 children, arrived in Sabang city in Aceh province, located on an island off the tip of northern Sumatra, at around 11pm local time on Tuesday.
But they were rejected by locals who threatened to put them back to sea.
“How can we go anywhere?” 15-year-old Rohingya refugee Abdul Rahman asked. “We don’t want to go back.”
Local authorities then agreed to their relocation by ferry later on Wednesday to a temporary shelter in one of Aceh’s biggest cities, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said.
“The plan is for the refugees to be relocated to a shelter in Lhokseumawe,” Sabang social agency head Naufal, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP.
He said the relocation had been coordinated with UNHCR and the refugees had been given food and drink after their arrival.
“The (local) government decided to take them to a place designated by the national government,” UN refugee agency protection associate Faisal Rahman told AFP on Wednesday.
The group had spent 15 days at sea after leaving Bangladesh for Aceh, Abdul Rahman said.