Indonesia: Boat carrying over 200 Rohingya refugees rejected by locals

More than 200 Rohingya reached Indonesia’s Aceh province in a boat on Thursday, bringing the number of new arrivals this week to nearly 600, but villagers in separate locations forced the latest batch to return to sea, RFA reported.

Indonesian foreign ministry has complained that human traffickers are taking advantage of Indonesia’s generosity over the years in allowing in members of the stateless and persecuted minority group from Myanmar, while police say that locals were complaining about bad behavior by some among the 1,000-odd Rohingya sheltering in Aceh.

According to an intelligence officer for the Bireuen police, the Rohingya were given food and drinks, and five of them who appeared very unwell were allowed to disembark and stay on in the village.

According to fishermen, Rohingya on those boats had sailed from the refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh, which host some 1 million Rohingya, nearly 740,000 of whom escaped a violent military crackdown in 2017.

A Muslim minority, the Rohingya have faced decades of systematic discrimination, statelessness and targeted violence in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.