Indonesian Navy Rescues 198 Rohingya near Aceh

By THE IRRAWADDY

The Indonesian navy rescued 198 Rohingya boat people off the coast of Aceh on Monday, nearly three weeks after they were reportedly set adrift in the open sea by the Thai navy, and less than a month after a similar incident provoked an international outcry over Thailand’s treatment of refugees.

According to reports from Indonesia, a local fisherman discovered the starving and dehydrated Rohingya men in an engineless boat drifting off the coast of the island of Sumatra on Monday afternoon. They told rescuers they had been towed out to sea by the Thai navy.

At least 56 of the survivors, including a 13-year-old boy, were admitted to the Idirayeuk General Hospital in Aceh province with severe dehydration. Other survivors said that they had had nothing to eat or drink for seven days and that 22 of them had died at sea.

On January 7, 193 Rohingya were rescued by the Indonesian navy after they washed up near Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra. Indonesian authorities have refused to offer asylum to any of this first group of boat people, saying that they are economic migrants and not refugees fleeing persecution.

Meanwhile, Thailand’s House committee on security said that international human traffickers were behind the recent massive influx of Rohingya boat people, who said that they were fleeing discrimination in Burma’s Arakan State.

Committee chairman Jehraming Tohtayong said that his panel had discovered that networks of traffickers were bringing Rohingya to Thailand en route to third countries.

He said that some of the boat people had telephone numbers they used to contact other Rohingya who have already settled in Thailand.

He also said that the Thai government should encourage the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to ensure that the Rohingya’s basic rights were protected in their homeland of Burma.

According to official figures, 4,880 Rohingya boat people arrived in Thailand last year. The Thai government said that it was working with the UNHCR to deal with the situation.

The UNHCR was granted access to 66 boat people in the southern Thai port city of Ranong today. Kitty McKinsey, the regional spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Asia, told The Irrawaddy that the UN agency would report its findings when it meets with the Thai government next week.

A rising tide of Rohingya refugees has been fleeing Burma to the neighboring countries of Indonesia, Malaysia and India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Their numbers usually increase after November, when the seas are at their calmest. Many seek to escape the economic hardship of their restricted lives and turn to brokers to find a better life in countries such as Malaysia and Thailand.