A ship with around 300 Rohingya refugees lands in Indonesia after several months on the high seas

A Rohingya refugee rescued in June in Aceh, Indonesia, is treated and transferred on a stretcher / Europa Press

About 300 Rohingya refugees landed in the Indonesian province of Aceh on Monday in one of the most important arrivals to the archipelago of this persecuted Muslim minority in Myanmar (formerly Burma).

Survivors have reported that they have spent six months at sea looking for a port to disembark since leaving the coast of Bangladesh.

More than 30 of his companions have died during the journey, as reported by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The group of 297 people (102 men, 181 women and 14 children) was sighted by locals, who assisted refugees on the north coast of the island of Sumatra, near the town of Lhokseumawe, according to Munir Cut Ali. , Ujong Blang village chief.

"We saw a ship coming ashore at Ujong Blang and we helped them disembark safely," the official told AFP.

A sick man has been taken to the hospital and all will be subjected to tests to see if they are carriers of the coronavirus.

"Then the local government will look for a suitable place to house them," added the official.

A spokesman for the Indonesian Red Cross, Muhamad Waly, has explained to the DPA news agency that the boat arrived around midnight.

"According to information from several of them, they have spent six months at sea," said Waly, who confirmed that the migrants are "weak" and some even "sick."

In April, the Bangladesh coast guard rescued nearly 400 Rohingya from similar conditions after two months adrift on the high seas.

However, the

newspaper

estimated that the vessel was carrying nearly 500 people.

Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, an NGO focused on the Rohingya crisis, has assured that the passengers who arrived in Aceh sailed from southern Bangladesh in late March or early April, bound for Malaysia.

Both the Malaysian and Thai authorities rejected them, as border control has tightened due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Migrant smugglers divided the passengers into several boats, some of which made it to Malaysia and Indonesia in June, but several hundred remained at sea until Sunday night.

The smugglers called their families to demand their corresponding payments for the trip in the weeks before the disembarkation, according to Lewa.

“They seemed not to want to disembark them because not all of them had paid.

They were basically being held hostage on the boat, ”he said.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has confirmed on Twitter the sending of a team to assist these people.

The director for Asia and the Pacific of UNHCR, Indrika Ratwatte, has also warned in a statement that "desperate conditions" have passed.

The international agency has denounced a "collective" failure to attend to these people, since the group has tried to disembark throughout these months without success.

In this sense, he regretted the inaction of the countries in the area, despite the commitments made after the boat crisis five years ago, which were based on a "collective response."

Almost a million Rohingya remain refugees in precarious conditions in Bangladesh, where migrant smugglers are looking for candidates to travel.

Most fled the repressive wave launched in August 2017 by the Armed Forces of Burma, a country with a Buddhist majority, against this Muslim minority.

The lack of prospect of return has pushed thousands of them to seek new outlets in other countries in the area.

Indonesia and Malaysia, two countries with a Muslim majority, are the most sought after destinations for the Rohingya.