By REZA SAIFULLAH and EDNA TARIGAN (Associated Press)
MEULABOH, Indonesia (AP) — On Thursday, an Indonesian search and rescue ship found a capsized wooden boat carrying many Rohingya Muslim refugees, and began rescuing survivors who had been standing on its hull.
A photographer from AP on the rescue ship reported that 10 people had been taken onto local fishing boats and another 59 were being rescued by the Indonesian craft.
As the rescue operation began and people were taken onto a rubber dinghy to the rescue boat, men, women and children, weak and soaked from the night's rain, cried.
There were conflicting reports about whether anyone had died in the accident, with survivors saying many who had been on the boat from Bangladesh were still missing, but authorities insisted everyone had been rescued.
“We have checked all 69 Rohingya that we rescued and from our check, there was no information from them about any deaths,” Fathur, a rescue officer who gave only one name, told reporters. “We managed to evacuate all 69 people and no one claimed that anyone had died.”
Including six Rohingya who were rescued by private fishing boats prior to the official rescue mission, a total of 75 people from the boat were saved.
However, Samira, a 17-year-old refugee from the Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh who was on her way to Malaysia, mentioned that there had been 146 people on board, suggesting that 71 could still be missing at sea.
She stated that the boat started having problems three days ago and then overturned on Wednesday, and her nephew was among those missing.
“All of us are extremely sad,” she said. “We are very hungry and weak.”
When fishing vessels arrived at the scene on Wednesday, desperate refugees boarded one of the boats, causing it to capsize as well. The fate of the crew on board was not immediately clear.
After receiving information from fishermen about the refugees in need of help on Wednesday morning, an official search and rescue team departed from Banda Aceh city on Wednesday evening. They didn't reach the area of the accident until early in the morning and initially couldn't find the capsized boat.
When they came across it on Thursday midday, they found the refugees on its hull, in urgent need of help.
They rescued 42 men, 18 women and nine children and took some to a temporary shelter in the Aceh Besar district and others to a local hospital for treatment.
Amiruddin, a tribal fishing community leader in Aceh Barat district, said those rescued indicated that the boat was sailing east when it started leaking and strong currents pushed it west of Aceh.
About 740,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh to escape a violent campaign by security forces in their home country of Myanmar.
Thousands have been trying to leave crowded camps in Bangladesh for nearby countries, and Indonesia has seen an increase in refugee numbers since November, leading it to seek help from the international community. Rohingya arriving in Aceh face some hostility from certain fellow Muslims.
Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia have not agreed to the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention, which sets out their legal protections, so they are not required to accept them. However, they have given temporary shelter to distressed refugees so far.
The United Nations refugee agency reported that almost 4,500 Rohingya, with two-thirds being women and children, escaped from Myanmar and the refugee camps in Bangladesh by boat last year. Out of those, 569 died or went missing while crossing the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, marking the highest death toll since 2014.
It is nearly impossible for the Rohingya to return safely to Myanmar because the military that attacked them seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected government in 2021. No country has provided them with any significant resettlement opportunities.
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Tarigan reported from Jakarta. AP journalist David Rising contributed to this story from Bangkok.
