JAKARTA: About 185 Rohingya migrants landed in Indonesia’s Aceh province after drifting at sea for weeks, police and rights activists said Tuesday.
DPA reported the boat came ashore in Ujong Pie village on Monday, a day after a wooden vessel with 57 Rohingya people landed in another part of Aceh on Christmas Day.
“The group consists of 83 adult males, 70 adult women and 32 children,“ Aceh police spokesman Winardy said in a statement.
A video shared by a local resident showed the Rohingya, including children, lying down on the beach, visibly weak and exhausted.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR has said the number of Rohingya undertaking such dangerous journeys by boat had increased six-fold this year, compared with 2021. It urged governments in the region to move swiftly to rescue them.
More than 1 million Rohingya Muslims have fled persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar since 2017, most of them still languishing in dozens of refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh.-Bernama