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About 300 Rohingya migrants arrived in Indonesia on Monday morning after locals found them in a wooden boat facing the sea, UN officials said. The refugees told UN officials they were stranded at sea for seven months.
Approximately 300 arrived A Rohingya migrant to Indonesia On Monday morning, they reported that they had been trapped at sea for seven months, according to UN officials. These immigrants represent the largest group of members of the Muslim minority to arrive in a country at one time.
Local residents found the migrants, including more than 12 children, in a wooden boat at sea near the town of Loksumawy on the north coast of Sumatra, authorities said.
The High Commissioner said To the United Nations for refugees Okina “according to their testimonies, because they said they wandered for seven months” at sea.
And the official added that “his state is very weak at present.”
Chris Liwa, director of the Arakan Project, a non-governmental organization focused on the Rohingya crisis, noted that migrants may have been detained at sea when smugglers extort money from their families.
“In fact, these people were taken hostage,” he explained.
He said, citing testimonies from immigrants, that the smugglers told them they “will not allow the boat to reach the beach until they pay.”
But he acknowledged: “We still don’t know the full story.”
The army commander in the area stated that at least one person in the group, consisting of 102 men, 181 women and 14 children, was ill and was rushed to a local hospital for treatment.
Migrants are “human beings like us”
Photos from Loksumawe showed migrants sitting on the floor of a random building with their few belongings, with locals donating food and clothing.
“We are concerned about his condition,” said Aisha, a local resident. “They need help on behalf of humanity … They are human beings like us,” he added.
The arrival of this group comes after some 100 Rohingya migrants, mostly women and children, arrived in the same area in June after spending a dangerous four-month journey in which smugglers beat them and forced them to drink their urine to survive.
The two groups, which arrived in June, and the latter group may be part of a larger group of about 800 refugees who were reported to have left southern Bangladesh earlier this year, Liwa said.
He added that some 30 refugees from the original group are believed to have died at sea.
About a million Rohingya live in overcrowded, heir-like camps in Bangladesh, bordering Burma, where smugglers carry out highly lucrative operations that promise them safe havens abroad.
Malaysia and Indonesia are favorites of the refugees of the persecuted Muslim minority.
Hundreds of Rohingya left the camps in early April but were prevented from entering their lands by Malaysian and Thai authorities amid the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, Liwa said.
“This is the biggest wave of arrivals that we have seen since 2015,” Liwa said.
“But the bigger question is whether they have all made it to shore or whether some are still at sea,” he said, referring to the original group of 800 refugees.
France 24 / AFP
