JAKARTA: Over 130 Rohingya landed on the shores of Indonesia’s Aceh province on Thursday, an official at the UN refugee agency said, the latest in a series of such arrivals that have drawn controversy in the Southeast Asian country.

The Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim group in Myanmar, have faced rejection and hostility from locals in Aceh when they land ashore. Nearly 2,000 of them have arrived since October, UNHCR data showed.

Faisal Rahman, protection associate at the UNHCR in Indonesia, said over 130 Rohingya arrived in Aceh on Thursday morning.

For years Rohingya have been leaving Myanmar, where they are generally regarded as foreign interlopers from South Asia, denied citizenship and subjected to abuse.

They often travel by rickety boats to escape poor conditions there or in camps in neighbouring Bangladesh. Some travel to Indonesia and Malaysia between November and April, when the seas are calmer.

In Indonesia, they have faced hostility.

In December, a group of university students in the city of Banda Aceh stormed a convention centre housing hundreds of Rohingya, demanding they be deported.

The UNHCR called the incident a “mob attack” that was the result of a coordinated online campaign of misinformation and hate speech.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2024