Global Courant
Local authorities in Aceh province have received several reports of dead bodies floating in nearby waters since Saturday.
The bodies of three Rohingya refugees have been found in open waters off Indonesia’s Aceh province, the provincial search and rescue agency said, as authorities end a search for survivors of a capsized boat.
The wooden boat with an estimated 151 people on board capsized about 19 kilometers from Kuala Bubon beach on Aceh’s west coast on Wednesday morning. Fishermen and a search and rescue team rescued 75 people from the boat Thursday — 44 men, 22 women and nine children — after huddled on the overturned hull all night.
However, more than 70 Rohingya were “presumed dead or missing”, which if confirmed would be the largest loss of life in such an incident so far this year, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday.
“After searching the area, the team found three bodies, two adult women and a boy. They are reportedly Rohingya refugees who were the passengers of the capsized and sunken boat,” Al Hussain, head of the Banda Aceh Search and Rescue Agency, said in a statement on Sunday.
Fishermen first saw the three bodies and reported them to local authorities on Saturday. The bodies were taken to hospital in Calang town in Aceh Jaya district before local authorities buried them.
Officials from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said survivors had confirmed that the deceased refugees were on the capsized boat.
“We verified… we took one of the refugees to identify and verify that they were on the boat together,” Faisal Rahman of UNHCR in Aceh said on Saturday.
Local authorities in Aceh have received several reports of dead bodies floating in nearby waters since Saturday. Most of those believed to have died – mainly women and children – probably could not swim and were carried out to sea by the current.
Myanmar’s predominantly Muslim Rohingya minority faces widespread discrimination, with most denied citizenship. About a million of them fled to Bangladesh – including about 740,000 in 2017 – as refugees to escape a brutal campaign by Myanmar’s security forces, who have been accused of committing mass rapes and murders and burning thousands of homes.
In recent years, many Rohingya have fled crowded camps in Bangladesh to make dangerous sea journeys on rickety boats to reach Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia in search of a better future. Many drowned along the way. The number of Rohingya dead or missing in 2023 as they fled Myanmar or Bangladesh was the highest since 2014, the UNHCR said in January.
Indonesia, like Thailand and Malaysia, has not signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and is therefore not obliged to accept it. However, it generally provides temporary shelter to refugees in need. According to UNHCR data, more than 2,300 Rohingya arrived in Indonesia last year, exceeding the number of arrivals in the previous four years combined.
However, opposition to the Rohingya has increased in Indonesia, where some claim, without evidence, that refugees receive more resources from aid agencies than residents and that they engage in criminal activities. Locals have protested against authorities turning back Rohingya who arrive by boat.
