JakartaPost/AFP-Mar 7, 2022
A boat carrying more than 100 Rohingya refugees, including dozens of children, landed on the coast of Aceh early Sunday, local police said. The vessel, which sailed from a Rohingya camp in Bangladesh, arrived shortly after 3 am. local time on a beach in Bireun district. It was carrying 114 people, including 58 men, 21 women and 35 children aged under 15 years old. “We will conduct a general health check-up and COVID-19 rapid antigen tests for these foreigners,” Aceh Police chief Mike Hardy Wirapraja told AFP. He said they would later be transferred to neighboring Lhokseumawe district, which has a shelter for refugees. Police found out about the arrival after some local fishermen reported that a boat filled with Rohingya people had landed on the beach. The boat appeared to be in good condition and the refugees had sufficient food and supplies during the journey. “We are originally from Myanmar but we fled to Bangladesh and we started our journey from Bangladesh,” one of the refugees, Omar Faruk, told an AFP journalist, adding that the group had been at sea for 25 days. Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees and is predominantly seen as a transit country for those seeking asylum in a third country. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2022/03/06/rohingya-boat-with-dozens-of-children-lands-in-aceh.html.
