It is a rescue in extremis. Bowing to the protests of the local population and the international community, the Indonesian navy rescued, on the night of Thursday 30 to Friday 31 December, more than a hundred Rohingya refugees, in difficulty on a wooden boat. Indonesia initially wanted to push them back into Malaysian waters.
The ship docked shortly after midnight in Lhokseumawe, on the north coast of the province of Aceh, located on the island of Sumatra, according to a journalist from Agence France-Presse present on the spot.
After disembarking, the migrants, mostly women and children, were sprayed with disinfectant and transferred to buses before being taken to a nearby training center, where they will be tested for SARS- CoV-2 and other medical checks before being quarantined for ten days.
Indonesia announced on Wednesday that it agreed to host the boat for humanitarian reasons, after refusing the disembarkation of the refugees the day before. The Indonesian authorities then let it be known that food, equipment and technical assistance had been provided to them to reach Malaysia after repairing their boat.
Solidarity movement
After a meeting Wednesday with officials from the coastal town of Bireun, Jakarta reversed its decision and said the refugee boat would be towed to shore. As early as Tuesday, Amnesty International and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees asked the Indonesian authorities to allow the boat to disembark.
The Aceh authorities’ initial plan to return the refugees to Malaysia also angered residents of Bireun, where a group of fishermen staged a protest on Wednesday demanding authorities allow them to dock.
The Rohingya boat, overloaded and with engine failure, was discovered on December 25 by fishermen. Photos and a video had circulated on social networks, sparking a movement of solidarity.
In 2020, hundreds of Rohingya refugees arrived in Indonesia. Most subsequently reached Malaysia, where more than 100,000 members of this persecuted Muslim community in Burma often live and work illegally.