JAKARTA: About 250 Rohingya refugees in an overcrowded wooden boat have been turned away from western Indonesia and sent back to sea, residents said Friday.
The group of around 250 from the persecuted Myanmar minority arrived off the coast of Aceh province on Thursday but angry locals told them not to land the boat. Some refugees then swam ashore and collapsed with exhaustion on the beach.
After they were forced to return to the decrepit boat, it travelled dozens of kilometres to the coast of North Aceh, where the refugees landed on a beach. But locals again forced them back to the boat and out to sea.
By Friday, the vessel, which some on board said had sailed from Bangladesh about three weeks ago, was no longer visible from where it had landed on North Aceh’s shores, residents said.
Thousands from the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority risk their lives each year on long and expensive sea journeys, often in flimsy boats, to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia.
“We’re fed up with their presence because when they arrived on land, sometimes many of them ran away. There are some kinds of agents that picked them up. It’s human trafficking,” Saiful Afwadi, a traditional community leader in North Aceh, told AFP on Friday.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry spoke up about the hundreds of Rohingya refugees that arrived in Aceh by boats on Tuesday. The ministry stressed that Indonesia has no obligation and capacity to accept refugees.
Ministry spokesperson Lalu Muhammad Iqbal affirmed that Indonesia is not a party to the 1951 Refugees Convention that obliged its state parties to protect refugees entering their territory. Around 146 countries have ratified the Convention and 147 countries are parties to its 1967 Protocol.
“Indonesia is not a party to the 1951 Refugees Convention. Thus, Indonesia has no obligation and capacity to accept refugees, moreover to provide a permanent solution to said refugees,” he said in a brief message.
Almost 200 Rohingya refugees, most of whom were women and children, arrived by boat on Tuesday, the chief of a local fishing community said. Hundreds of Rohingyans were stranded at Kemukiman Kalee Beach, Pidie Regency, Aceh.
A member of Panglima Laot (Sea Commander) 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.
Iqbal said that the shelters that Indonesia has provided for Rohingya refugees all this time were solely for humanitarian purposes.
“Ironically, many state parties to the Convention close their doors [to refugees] and even implement a push back policies against them,” he added.
So far, Iqbal said, the shelters Indonesia provided are often used by human smuggling networks to gain financial benefits from refugees. The smugglers do not care about the high risk faced by the refugees, especially women and children.
“Many of [refugees] are identified as a victim of human trafficking,” he revealed.
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