BIREUEN: Three boats filled with more than 500 Rohingya refugees landed in Indonesia’s westernmost province on Sunday, a UN agency said, in one of the biggest arrivals since Myanmar launched a military crackdown on the minority group in 2017.

The mostly Muslim Rohingya are heavily persecuted in Myanmar, and thousands risk their lives each year on long and expensive sea journeys, often in flimsy boats, to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia.

United Nations refugee agency protection associate Faisal Rahman said one boat had arrived in Aceh province’s Bireuen district with 256 people aboard, while at least 241 others arrived in Aceh’s Pidie region and a smaller boat carrying 36 arrived in East Aceh. “They were found in several spots,” Rahman said on Sunday.

Of the 256 aboard the Bireuen boat, 110 were women and 60 were children, he said.

It was the same boat that locals had pushed back out to sea on Thursday, leaving it stranded off the coast for several days, according to Rahman. “It’s confirmed… because many people were identified by security officials during the landing,” he said.

The latest arrivals mean more than 800 refugees have landed in Aceh province this week alone, after 196 arrived on Tuesday and 147 on Wednesday, according to local officials. A journalist saw the Rohingya boat docked on the beach in Bireuen after the refugees had disembarked.

The refugees were being held at a temporary shelter while awaiting a decision from authorities on their fate, and were mostly in good health. Bireuen regional secretary Ibrahim Ahmad told reporters on Sunday the refugees’ cases would be handled by other institutions, without elaborating.

In Pidie, Marfian, a spokesperson for the local fishing community who like many Indonesians goes by one name, confirmed that a boat of nearly 250 refugees landed overnight.

One of them, 20-year-old Aziz Ullah, said he was living in a camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh before the group started their journey 16 days ago.

“The (reason) behind our journey was that… the Myanmar government committed violence (against us) again and again,” he said. “I just want a peaceful life, anywhere. If I will get a peaceful life here, I will stay here.”

Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2023