Rohingya refugees arrive in Aceh province, Indonesia (Reuters)
An official with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that more than 130 Rohingya arrived on the shores of the Indonesian province of Aceh on Thursday, the latest group of refugees whose arrival has sparked controversy in the Southeast Asian country.
UNHCR data showed that nearly 2,000 of them have arrived since last October.
UNHCR's protection officer in Indonesia, Faisal Rahman, said that more than 130 Rohingya arrived in the East Aceh region this morning.
For years, the Rohingya have been fleeing Myanmar, where they have been subjected to abuse and deprived of citizenship.
They often travel on rickety boats to escape poor conditions there, or from camps in neighboring Bangladesh.
Some go to Indonesia and Malaysia between November and April, when the seas are calmer.
The Rohingya people face some racist campaigns; In December 2023, a group of university students in the city of Banda Aceh stormed a conference center housing hundreds of Rohingya, demanding their deportation.
The Commission described the incident as a "mob attack" that was the result of a coordinated online campaign of misinformation and hate speech.
The UNHCR said last month that at least 569 Rohingya died or went missing while trying to flee Myanmar or Bangladesh in 2023, the highest number since 2014.
The French newspaper La Croix said that about 4,500 Rohingya refugees fled from their crowded camps in Bangladesh to the Aceh region in Indonesia, dreaming of returning to Malaysia, but nearly 600 of them died at sea, while the survivors face increasing hostility from the local population in the region.
The Rohingya Muslim minority has been subjected to military repression since 2017 by the army and Buddhist militias in Myanmar, which led to more than 740,000 of them seeking refuge in Bangladesh, and exposed Myanmar to charges of “genocide” before the International Court of Justice.
Source: Reuters + Lacroix