Officials say that dozens of Rohingya Muslims who had been at sea for weeks and were starving were found on a beach in Aceh, the most northern province of Indonesia, on Sunday.
According to local police commander Rolly Yuiza Away, the gang of 58 men landed on Indrapatra beach at Ladong, a fishing village in Aceh Besar district, early on Sunday. He said that villagers who saw the Rohingya group in a small wooden boat helped them land and then told the authorities about their arrival.
They appear quite feeble due to hunger and dehydration. Away said that the guys received food and drink from villagers and others while they awaited additional orders from immigration and local officials in Aceh. “Some of them are sick following a long and difficult voyage at sea,” she added.
Away says that at least three of the men have been sent to a medical facility for treatment and that other men are getting different kinds of medical care.
On Friday, the United Nations and other organisations urged nations in South Asia to save up to 190 individuals aboard a small boat that has been drifting aimlessly in the Andaman Sea for several weeks. These passengers are thought to be Rohingya refugees.
According to reports, the passengers onboard have been at sea for a month in appalling conditions with little food or water, with no attempts by states in the area to save human lives, the UNHCR said in a statement.There have been reports of up to 20 individuals passing away on the unsafe vessel during the voyage, many of them women and children.
Away stated that it was unclear where the group was coming from or if they were among the 190 Rohingya refugees who had been lost at sea for several months. However, one of the men who could speak a little Malay claimed that they had been at sea for more than a month and were trying to reach Malaysia for a chance at a better life and employment.
Since August 2017, when the Myanmar military began a clearance operation in response to attacks by a rebel group, more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from Buddhist-majority Myanmar to refugee camps in Bangladesh. People say that Myanmar’s security forces have burned down tens of thousands of homes and raped and killed a lot of people.
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There have been attempts by groups of Rohingya to emigrate from the overcrowded camps in Bangladesh and make perilous sea voyages to other Muslim-majority countries in the region.
The boats frequently end up in Muslim-dominated Malaysia, where smugglers have promised the refugees a better life. However, a large number of Rohingya refugees that arrive in Malaysia suffer detention.
A 2016 presidential decree, according to the UNHCR, establishes a national legal framework for the treatment of refugees on boats in distress near Indonesia and to assist them in disembarking, despite the fact that Indonesia is not a member of the 1951 Refugee Convention of the UN.
Years have passed since these regulations were put into effect, most recently last month when two flimsy boats carrying roughly 219 Rohingya refugees, including 63 women and 40 children, were rescued off the shore of North Aceh province.
Usman Hamid, executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia, urged the Indonesian authorities to save the boats and provide their safe disembarkation. We also ask the Indonesian government to lead a regional effort to get rid of the problem of refugees.
Tom Andrews, the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, asked governments in South and Southeast Asia on Thursday “to immediately and urgently coordinate search and rescue for this boat and make sure those on board can get off safely before any more lives are lost.”
Andrews said in a statement that boats carrying desperate Rohingya men, women, and young children are setting out on dangerous journeys in boats that are not safe for the sea “as many people around the world are getting ready to celebrate the holiday season and ring in the new year.”
