ACEH BESAR, Indonesia, 10 Dec: Two boats carrying more than 300 Rohingya Muslims, including emaciated women and children, arrived at Indonesia\u2019s northernmost province of Aceh on Sunday morning after being adrift for weeks.
\nOne boat, which had been at sea for about one and a half months and carrying 135 passengers, arrived at a beach in Lamreh village in Aceh Besar Regency. Shahidul Islam, a 34-year-old survivor, said they left their refugee camp in Bangladesh. \u201cThe boat was sinking. We had no food or water left,\u201d he said.
\nThe other boat carrying nearly 180 people docked at a beach in Blang Raya village at Pidie Regency. It has been adrift in the Andaman Sea without adequate supplies for about 27 days. Mahmud Husein, 25, a survivor, said he gave the boat owner 40,000 taka ($363) to help him leave Bangaldesh.
\n\u201cWe came to Indonesia, but we want to go to other countries if they want to help us,\u201d Husein said.
\nAnother boat, carrying more refugees, embarked from Bangaldesh at the same time, Husein confirmed, but has remained missing. The U.N. refugee agency warned that people onboard could die if more is not done to rescue them.
\nAbout 740,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to camps in Bangladesh since August 2017, following a brutal counterinsurgency campaign. Myanmar security forces have been accused of mass rapes, killings and the burning of thousands of Rohingya homes, and international courts are considering whether their actions constitute genocide.
\nSince November, more than 1,500 Rohingya refugees have arrived by boat in Indonesia\u2019s Aceh province. Some were denied landing by the residents in Aceh Utara district and Sabang island, sparking concerns from human rights organizations.
\nRijalul Fitri, head of Blang Raya village in Aceh, said Sunday they do not want the refugees in their village. \u201cWe stayed up all night so as not to allow them to dock, but at 2.30 a.m., they arrived,\u201d he said.
\nFitri was adamant about the refugees\u2019 relocation, saying, \u201cthey can\u2019t stay here.\u201d
\nPresident Joko Widodo on Friday said in a statement that Indonesia\u2019s government suspected a surge in human trafficking because of the increasing number of Rohingya Muslims who entered the country over the past few weeks, especially in Aceh.
\nPolice in the city of Lohkseumawe \u2014 where there is a camp for Rohingya Muslim refugees \u2014 arrested three Aceh residents for human trafficking. They were charged with taking 1.8 million rupiah (about $115), to smuggle 30 refugees from the camp to the city of Medan in North Sumatra province, said Henki Ismanto, the Lhokseumawe police chief.
\nMost of the refugees leaving by sea attempt to reach Muslim-majority Malaysia, in search of work. Indonesia, where Muslims comprise nearly 90% of the country\u2019s 277 million people, has been detaining them. AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ACEH BESAR, Indonesia, 10 Dec: Two boats carrying more than 300 Rohingya Muslims, including emaciated women and children, arrived at Indonesia\u2019s northernmost province of Aceh on Sunday morning after being adrift for weeks. One boat, which had been at sea for about one and a half months and carrying 135 passengers, arrived at a beach […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-230374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}