AFP – More than 100 Rohingya refugees, including women and children, landed in Indonesia’s westernmost province on Saturday, officials said, but locals threatened to push them back to sea.
Hundreds more of the mostly Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar were trapped on board another two unseaworthy vessels adrift in the Andaman Sea, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
The latest arrival comes after more than 1,000 Rohingya refugees landed in Aceh last month, the biggest wave of Rohingyas to land in Indonesia since 2015.
The Rohingya are heavily persecuted in Myanmar and thousands risk their lives each year on long and expensive sea journeys, often in flimsy boats that sail from Bangladesh, to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia.
A 19-year-old Rohingya who gave his name as Deluarsah said the group left Bangladesh in early November and spent more than 20 days at sea in dangerous conditions.
“We come here with the single boat. The ocean is very dangerous,” Deluarsah said, adding that he was “happy” to have landed in Indonesia.
The UNHCR urged countries around the Andaman Sea to “swiftly deploy their full search and rescue capacities” to find the other two other boats it said had suffered engine failure and were “aimlessly drifting”.
“UNHCR is concerned that food and water may be running out and there is a significant risk of fatalities in the coming days if people are not rescued and disembarked to safety,” it said in a statement.
Monitors say more boats are on the way despite some locals turning the often dangerously overcrowded vessels carrying Rohingya refugees back to sea and stepping up patrols along the coast.
Dofa Fadhli, the head of Ie Meulee village on Sabang island off Aceh, said there were 139 refugees on the latest boat, which made land at 2.30am local time, including “children, women and adult men”.
“When I arrived, the Rohingya refugees were already on the beach,” he told AFP.
More than half a dozen boats have arrived in Aceh since November 14 and the UNHCR commended Indonesia’s “example of solidarity and humanity”, which it said other countries in the region should follow.
However, Fadhli said those on board would be pushed back to sea if they were not relocated but would also be given aid in the meantime.
