A boat carrying 71 weak and starving Rohingya Muslims fleeing refugee camps in Bangladesh landed in Indonesia’s northernmost province of Aceh on Thursday, local officials said.
15-year-old Shorif Uddin, who was on the boat with his parents, said two or three people died while at sea due to lack of food.
“We’ve traveled so long and we didn’t have any food to eat. We’re really hungry,” she said.
He said the Rohingyas have been unable to find work or get higher education in the refugee camps and have decided to leave Bangladesh for Indonesia.
His parents paid the money to board the boat along with other refugees, but the captain escaped the vessel as it was crossing into India, Uddin said.
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Ethnic Rohingya people rest on Lampanah Leungah beach after disembarking in Aceh Besar, Aceh province, Indonesia on February 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Riska Munawarah)
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Miftach Cut Adek, the 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 aboard included 21 women and 20 children.
More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to refugee camps in Bangladesh after an army-led crackdown in August 2017. Myanmar security forces have been accused of the mass rapes, killings and burning of thousands Rohingya homes.
Most of the refugees who left the camps by sea attempted 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 Aceh Besar district.
