On Monday (Mar 27), officials reported that more than 180 Rohingya Muslims had landed in Indonesia’s Aceh province. These refugees are among hundreds who have fled Myanmar and Bangladesh camps by boat due to desperate conditions.
The UN refugee agency warns of a potentially deadly year at sea for the Rohingya in 2022. 184 of them have arrived in East Aceh district in good health, confirmed by a local police spokesperson named Kamil.
It was not immediately clear how many vessels they were on.
Women and Children
Miftah Cut Ade, a senior member of the local fishing community in Aceh, said 90 women and children were among the migrants.
Many Rohingya have for years attempted in rickety wooden boats to reach neighbouring Thailand and Bangladesh, and Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia, especially between November and April when the seas are calm. An untold number of them have died at sea from disease, hunger and fatigue.
Since November last year, Indonesia has registered 918 Rohingya who reached Aceh, its westernmost region, according to the foreign ministry, having made the journey south in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. That compared to 180 in the whole of 2021.
Nearly 1 million Rohingya live in crowded conditions in Bangladesh. Among them those who fled a deadly crackdown in 2017 by Myanmar’s military, which denies committing crimes against humanity.