A video circulating on social media shows dehydrated, emaciated and weak refugees, several of whom are screaming for help.
At least 185 people went ashore on Monday at Ujong Pie beach in Aceh province, according to local police chief Fauzi. On Sunday, another boat arrived with 57 refugees on board.
“They are very weak due to dehydration and exhaustion after several weeks at sea,” says Fauzi.
Chris Lewa, head of the Arakan Project, which monitors the situation of the Rohingya people, says the people are the group of Rohingya who, according to the UN, have been reported to be on a small boat in the Andaman Sea for over a month. The UN refugee agency UNHCR has not yet confirmed that information.
The refugees left a camp in Bangladesh on November 20 and the boat then drifted out into the open sea, according to Rosyid, who was on the boat himself.
— 20 of us died on board due to high waves and illness, and their bodies were thrown into the sea, he says.
The Rohingya are a Muslim minority group that in 2017 were displaced by Myanmar’s army in what the UN called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. About a million Rohingya now live in camps in Bangladesh, near the border with Myanmar, in dire conditions.
Many desperately want to leave the refugee camps and choose to risk everything when they board barely seaworthy ships bound for Malaysia or Indonesia.
Around 200 Rohingya are feared to have perished at sea in 2022, according to UNHCR figures.
Women and children who have just arrived at a temporary accommodation in Pidie, in Aceh province.