196 Rohingya Refugees Arrives in Aceh by Boat

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Almost 200 Rohingya refugees, most of them women and children, arrived by boat in Indonesia's Aceh province on Tuesday, the chief of a local fishing community said. Hundreds of Rohingyans were stranded at Kemukiman Kalee Beach, Pidie Regency, Aceh.

The Secretary for Panglima Laot (Sea Commander) Pidie Marfian said that the refugees arrived in a big boat at around 11:30 a.m. WIB (Western Indonesia Time).

Another member of Panglima Laot Miftach Tjut Adek explained that the 196 refugees consisted of 61 men, 69 women, 27 adolescent girls, 32 adolescent boys, and 7 who ran away.

For years, many members of the ethnic Rohingya Muslims, a persecuted minority in Myanmar, have boarded rickety wooden boats to escape to Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia as well as Thailand.

Several hundred Rohingya arrived in Aceh earlier this year, and massive numbers have died at sea from disease, hunger, and fatigue. Last year was one of the deadliest in a decade for such refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said.

Miftah Cut Ade, chief of the local fishing community in Aceh, told Reuters 196 Rohingya arrived on one large wooden boat, and they were "weak and in need of nutrition." Residents provided food and water to the Rohingya, who were taken to a temporary shelter nearby, Miftah said.

Nearly one million Rohingya Muslims fled a military-led crackdown in Buddhist-majority Myanmar in 2017 and now live in what UNHCR Filippo Grandi described as "the biggest humanitarian refugee camp in the world" in Bangladesh.

REUTERS | ANTARA

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