MEULABOH: After drifting at sea for more than a day, a group of parched and sunburned Rohingya refugees were rescued on Thursday from the rusting shell of a crashed ship.
69 men, women, and children made up the group; some had escaped from filthy camps in Bangladesh, where a large number of the severely persecuted Myanmar minority had been living, after spending weeks at sea on a frail wooden boat.
The Rohingyas’ only place of safety after their wooden boat and another boat that was attempting to save them both capsized on Wednesday was the reddish hull of the vessel that was protruding out of the sea. The migrants attempted to jump onto the second boat, which belonged to local fishermen, but it capsized due to their terror.
How come the boat overturned? A 27-year-old survivor who went by the name Dostgior in shaky Indonesian remarked, “There was heavy rain.” The boats sank in West Aceh, 16 nautical miles (30 kilometers) off the coast.
According to local fisherman and the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), survivors reported that there were about 150 Rohingya on board, with scores being carried away. This would be another tragedy at sea for the severely persecuted minority group in Myanmar.
About 150 people were on board, according to survivors, and some of them were swept away.
The local search and rescue organization said in a statement, “The total victims rescued (alive) is 69,” adding that nine children, 42 men, and 18 women were also saved. Men, women, and children were seen being brought to safety by the local search and rescue organization in video captured from the boat.
I had been at sea for fifteen days, but other people have been here for far longer. Dostgior remarked, “Some have been here for a month.
The refugee stated that he had left Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where a large number of Rohingya people had fled.
I met someone in Bangladesh who could arrange for me to travel to Indonesia. I’m traveling to Indonesia with the intention of paying someone to drive me to Malaysia. I’ll pay someone else to get in once I get to Malaysia,” he declared.
A significant number of Rohingya travel the dangerous 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from Bangladesh to Malaysia, which supports a multimillion dollar human smuggling ring that frequently makes stops in Indonesia.
Regional protests
The local search and rescue agency reported that on Thursday, the group was brought to shore in Meulaboh, the capital of West Aceh, by the authorities. Ten ambulances and doctors were waiting for them when they arrived at Meulaboh port. Some of the refugees were driven to the hospital, while others were placed in a makeshift shelter in an abandoned Red Cross facility in a nearby village, according to a journalist.
But the residents of Beureugang hamlet raised a banner that said, “We reject the Rohingya refugees,” as part of a protest against the refugees dwelling there. As attitudes toward the minority group change in the very conservative Indonesian region of Aceh, some Rohingya boats that have been arriving there in recent months have been forced back out to sea. Many Acehnese feel sympathetic to the plight of their fellow Muslims, having themselves experienced decades of brutal conflict. Others, however, assert that their tolerance has been tried and that the Rohingya sometimes clash with locals and use up precious resources.
