Over 200 Rohingya arrive in Indonesia over weekend, official says

Bangkok Post Group

More than 200 Rohingya came ashore over the weekend in Indonesia's Aceh province, officials said on Monday (January 6), amid growing numbers of arrivals to the country by sea of the stateless population. - REUTERS

Transcript

00:00Over 200 Rohingya arrived by boat in Indonesia's Aceh province on Sunday evening.

00:07That's according to an official on Monday.

00:10This adds to the growing number of Rohingya people coming to the country by sea.

00:14The United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said it's sending a team to the area.

00:21The mainly Muslim Rohingya are originally from Buddhist-majority Myanmar

00:25and constitute the world's largest stateless population.

00:28But in Myanmar, they're regarded as foreign interlopers from South Asia

00:33and are denied citizenship and abused.

00:36They often escape poor conditions in refugee camps

00:39on rickety boats to Thailand, Indonesia or Malaysia

00:42between October and April when the seas are calmer.

00:45The Malaysia Coast Guard said on Sunday it turned back boats

00:49carrying almost 300 undocumented Myanmar migrants

00:52but didn't specify their ethnicity.

00:54Two days earlier, Malaysian police detained almost 200 people after their boats landed,

00:59believed by authorities to be Rohingya.

01:02Almost one million Rohingya live in Bangladesh

01:05in what the UNHCR calls the biggest humanitarian refugee camp in the world.

01:10Their data showed over 2,000 of the stateless people arrived in Indonesia in 2023.

01:17That's more than the combined total of arrivals in the previous four years.

01:24For more UN videos visit www.un.org

Category

Transcript

Recommended