Indonesia admits Rohingya refugees on ‘sinking’ vessel

JAKARTA: Indonesian authorities on Wednesday allowed a boat carrying an estimated 120 Rohingya refugees to disembark in the country.

The decision followed days of warnings that the vessel could sink off the country’s northernmost province of Aceh.

The boat was first sighted by local fishermen on Sunday, about 60 miles off the coast of Bireuen Regency.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said that the vessel was reportedly leaking and was at risk of capsizing, calling on the Indonesian govern-ment to allow the Rohingya refugees on board to reach the coast.

Local officials in Bireuen had earlier said that they were not prepared to accept the refugees, citing COVID-19 transmission fears, and were still waiting on instruc-tions from the central government.

The Maritime Security Agency, or Bakamla, has since confirmed that the wooden boat had a broken engine.

“The Indonesian government on Dec. 29, decided, in the name of humanity, to accommodate the Rohingya refugees who were stranded on a boat in the waters off Aceh,” Armed Wijaya, head of the refugee taskforce at the Coordi-nating Ministry for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, said in a statement.

“The decision was made after considering the emergency situa-tion that the refugees on the boat were experiencing,” he added.

Wijaya added that the exact number of refugees was unknown, but that they were mostly women and children.

They will receive the necessary help and undergo COVID-19 screening.Since Sunday, the Rohingya have been supported by the local fishing community, which supplied them with food and water.

According to Reza Maulana, a liaison officer for Aceh-based humanitarian group Geutanyoe Foundation, the boat was so full that many of the refugees on board could not sit down.

He told Arab News that had they not been allowed to disembark, “we would instead be collecting bodies from the sea.”More than 1 million Rohingya Muslims — members of an ethnic and religious minority in Myanmar — have fled persecution in their home country following a military crackdown in Rakhine State in 2017.

A majority sought refuge in neigh-boring Bangladesh.