Hostile climate | New arrival of Rohingya in Indonesia

(Sabang) More than a hundred Rohingya refugees landed on an island in the western tip of Indonesia on Saturday, officials said, but locals who had become hostile after successive waves of arrivals threatened to throw them back. the sea.

Since mid-November, more than 1,000 members of this Muslim minority persecuted in Burma have fled their camps in Bangladesh to reach the province of Aceh by sea, the largest Rohingya migration movement towards Indonesia since 2015, according to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).

UNHCR congratulated Indonesia for “this example of solidarity and humanity” and called on other countries in the region to do the same.

But on site, the welcome is rarely friendly.

“When I arrived, the Rohingya refugees were already on the beach,” Dofa Fadhli, chief of Ie Meulee village, on Sabang island, in the Aceh region, told AFP.

“The Rohingya, 139 in total, including children and women,” landed during the night, at 2:30 a.m. local time (2:30 p.m. Eastern time Friday), he said.

A 19-year-old Rohingya boy, Deluarsah, said the group left Bangladesh in early November, and spent more than 20 days at sea in “very dangerous” conditions, adding that he was “happy” to have arrived. in Indonesia.

But Mr Fadhli explained that the residents of Ie Meulee were “strongly opposed to the arrival of Rohingya refugees”. “If no action is taken by this afternoon, then we will take the refugees back to their boat,” he added.

“There will be others”

A UNHCR representative assured that the organization would “manage the situation with local authorities” but that the refugees would probably have to spend the night on the island. “We are doing everything we can to find a place for them” to go, he added.

According to images taken by AFP, the refugees have been grouped together on the beach and are being watched by police officers.

Thousands of Rohingya risk their lives every year in perilous and costly sea journeys, on boats often in poor condition, to try to reach Indonesia or Malaysia.

Bangladesh welcomes, most often in camps with miserable living conditions, around a million of these Rohingya who fled Burma, a predominantly Buddhist country.

According to observers, other boats left the coast of Bangladesh towards Indonesia despite the establishment of patrols by the Indonesian police to dissuade them from reaching the coast, where residents tried on several occasions to repel the refugees at sea.

Two boats, with some 400 people on board, are broken down and drifting in the Andaman Sea. The UNHCR has issued an urgent appeal to neighboring countries to “rapidly deploy all search and rescue capabilities” to recover them.

The NGO Médecins sans Frontières also called on Indonesia and Malaysia to welcome the refugees.

“It’s boat season, so more will arrive,” Paul Brockmann, MSF regional director in Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia, told AFP.

“These people don’t set out for a taste of adventure. They embark on these journeys out of desperation, and with hope for the future,” he added.