Rohingya refugees stranded on Indonesia beach to be moved after local rejection

Sabang, Indonesia – – AFP

More than 200 Rohingya refugees have been huddled on the beaches of a remote Indonesian island after weeks adrift on a wooden boat, as authorities rejected locals’ efforts to push the members of the persecuted 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 last week.

Thousands of the 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 on Tuesday.

However, they were rejected by some 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 relocation was coordinated with UNHCR and the refugees were 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 said on Wednesday.

The group had spent 15 days at sea after leaving Bangladesh for Aceh, Abdul Rahman said.

The engine of their vessel — which could be seen bobbing offshore — had been damaged, leaving them unable to travel elsewhere, he added.

UNHCR said Acehnese locals have sought to push Rohingya boats from Bangladesh back to sea three times in the last week.

Many Acehnese, who themselves have memories of decades of bloody conflict, have long been sympathetic to the plight of their fellow Muslims.

But some say their patience has been tested, claiming the Rohingya consume scarce resources and occasionally come into conflict with locals.

The refugees were seen huddled on a beach in Sabang on Wednesday, surrounded by a yellow cordon and security officers to stop them from running away.

Next to screaming babies, some children on the beach whacked the sand and built sandcastles, seemingly oblivious to the fractious situation unfolding around them.

More than a million from the ethnic group have fled Myanmar since the 1990s, most in the wake of a 2017 military crackdown that forced the bulk of them to settle in camps in Bangladesh.

‘Humanitarian crisis’

Indonesia is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention and says it is not compelled to take in refugees from Myanmar, complaining that neighbouring countries have shut their doors.

But rights groups said Jakarta should be doing more to help under other international conventions such as those that enshrine the safety of life at sea.

“These conventions also oblige Indonesia to save those who are in danger at sea,” Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid said.

“The latest wave of new refugees shows there is an emergency and humanitarian crisis experienced by the Rohingya.”

The Rohingya Muslim community of Myanmar suffered genocidal mass slaughter by state authorities in 2017, and have been described as the “most persecuted community in the world by the UN.”