Dozens of Rohingya refugees stranded on the rusty hull of a capsized ship were rescued yesterday after the dehydrated and sunburnt group had drifted at sea for more than a day.
The group included 69 men, women and children, some of whom had been at sea for weeks on a rickety wooden boat from squalid camps in Bangladesh, where many of the heavily persecuted Myanmar minority have fled.
The reddish hull of the vessel poking out of the water was the Rohingya’s only refuge after their wooden boat and another vessel trying to help them both capsized on Wednesday. The second boat, belonging to local fisher, overturned when the refugees tried to climb on in a panic.
Photo: Reuters
“Why did the boat capsize? There was heavy rain,” a 27-year-old survivor who gave his name as Dostgior said in broken Indonesian.
Survivors estimated that about 150 Rohingya had been on board with dozens swept away, local fishers and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said, in what would represent another tragedy at sea for the heavily persecuted Myanmar minority.
“The total victims rescued [alive] is 69,” the local search-and-rescue agency said in a statement, adding that nine children, 42 men and 18 women were saved.
The authorities were yesterday taking them to shore in West Aceh’s capital, Meulaboh, after spotting them in waters off the coast, the local search-and-rescue agency said. The boats sank 16 nautical miles (30km) off the coast in West Aceh.
Thousands of the mostly Muslim minority risk their lives each year on long and expensive sea journeys, often on flimsy boats, to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia. However, they often do so during Indonesia’s monsoon season when conditions can drag them to land, making their journeys even more hazardous.
Agence France-Presse footage from the boat showed men, women and children being taken to safety by the local search-and-rescue agency.
“I’d been at sea for 15 days, but there are others here who have been here longer than that. Some have been here for a month,” Dostgior said.
He said he had traveled from Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh where many Rohingya have fled.
“In Bangladesh, I met someone who could take me to Indonesia. My goal in going to Indonesia is to pay someone to take me to Malaysia. Once in Malaysia, I will pay someone else to enter,” he said.
Other refugees said they were from Myanmar and had tried to reach Thailand, but were rejected, West Aceh fishing community secretary-general Pawang Amiruddin said on Wednesday.
UNHCR protection associate Faisal Rahman said it was waiting for the evacuation team to arrive back to land to get “clear and firm data” on those rescued.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to