A boat carrying 71 weak and starving Rohingya Muslims fleeing refugee camps in Bangladesh landed in Aceh, Indonesia’s northernmost province, on Thursday, local officials said.
Shorif Uddin, 15, who was on the ship with his parents, said two or three people died while at sea due to lack of food.
“We have been traveling for so long and we had nothing to eat. We are very hungry,” he said.
He said the Rohingya had been unable to find jobs or higher education in the refugee camps and decided to leave Bangladesh for Indonesia.
His parents paid money to board the ship along with other refugees, but the captain fled the ship as it passed through India, Uddin said.
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Ethnic Rohingya people rest on Lampanah Leungah beach after landing in Aceh Besar, Aceh province, Indonesia on February 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Riska Munawarah)
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Miftach Cut Adek, leader of the tribal fishing community in Lampanah Leungah village in Aceh Besar district, where the boat landed, said it was in good condition and the engine was working.
The 71 Rohingya on board included 21 women and 20 children.
More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to refugee camps in Bangladesh after an army-led crackdown in August 2017. Myanmar security forces have been accused of mass rapes, murders and the arson of thousands from Rohingya households.
Most of the refugees who left the camps by sea tried to reach Muslim-majority Malaysia, but many ended up in Indonesia along the way.
More than 500 Rohingya landed in Aceh last year. The most recent cluster was in early January, when 184 people landed on Kuala Gigieng beach, also in the Aceh Besar district.
