October 24, 2024
JAKARTA – Personnel from a local search and rescue agency (Basarnas) rescued six Rohingya refugees on Sunday from a boat carrying more than 100 refugees stranded off the coast of Labuhan Haji district in South Aceh regency.
Local police also arrested three residents of Labuhan Haji over suspicion of their involvement in human trafficking, including allegedly picking up the refugees at sea and then transporting them overland to Pekanbaru, Riau.
“We rescued six Rohingya immigrants because they were sick. The rest are still on the motorboat,” Basarnas Meulaboh coordinator Juanda said on Sunday, as quoted by Antara, adding that the refugees had been transported by ambulance to Yuliddin Away Regional General Hospital (RSUD) in Tapaktuan district, South Aceh regency.
The Rohingya people are an ethnic minority in Myanmar who fled a military crackdown in 2017, with many seeking refuge at Cox’s Bazar in neighboring Bangladesh, the site of the largest Rohinya refugee camp.
Indonesia has seen a recent influx of Rohingya refugees and mounting opposition from residents in Aceh, including an incident last December, when hundreds of university students stormed a temporary shelter in Banda Aceh and demanded the Rohingya refugees there to leave.
According to Juanda, the boat was carrying 151 Rohingyas: 79 women, 13 men and 59 children under 10 years old.
“Among the six people we evacuated were two women, two men, a child and a pregnant woman. The [rescue operation] went smoothly without a hitch,” he added.
Ikram, head of services at Yuliddin hospital, confirmed that the six refugees were receiving treatment at the hospital.
“They suffer from fever, cough and cold. We also examined the pregnant Rohingya woman. We don’t know their overall condition yet, as the medical team is still checking them,” he said, adding that the hospital would provide inpatient care if the refugees needed additional treatment.
“We have also prepared a special room, separate from other patients,” said Ikram.
“We ask related parties, including the [United Nations’] International Organization for Migration to accompany them and our security team to ensure the safety of the patients we are currently caring for.”
Aceh Police criminal investigation head Sr. Comr. Ade Harianto said officers had arrested three Labuhan Haji residents, identified only as 35-year-old F, 33-year-old A and 32-year-old for allegedly picking up 216 Rohingya refugees at sea.
Of these, “Around 50 people made land and transported in a truck,” Ade said on Monday as quoted by Kompas.com. “We suspect that they are currently near Pekanbaru.”
Police are still trying to track down eight other people in relation to the suspected trafficking operation that used Bintang Raseki, a 38-gross ton fishing boat from Aceh, to pick up the Rohingya refugees in the Andaman Sea.
The refugees, who had sailed from Cox’s Bazar, were then transported in the fishing boat to the waters off Labuhan Haji.
Police suspect that a human trafficking syndicate was behind the operation, as Rohingya refugees usually paid a huge sum of money to be taken to another country.
The presence of the stranded Rohingya refugees has unnerved local residents, who refused to allow the boat to land and called on the UN Refugees Agency (UNHCR) to relocate them from Aceh.
Hernanda Taher, a former member of the South Aceh Regional Council, said people were worried that Rohingya refugees would keep arriving in Aceh.
“We asked the UNHCR to move the Rohingya refugees that were stranded in South Aceh waters,” he said on Sunday, as quoted by Antara.