Medan, Indonesia – A ship carrying 81 Rohingya refugees has washed the land on an uninhabited island in Indonesia after drifting more than 100 days at sea, which leads to a tense deadlock with local authorities about whether they will be allowed to enter the country or will be encouraged Return to the sea.
The small wooden boat was found early on Friday in waters on Idaman Island outside the coast of the province of Aceh, about two hours from the city of Lhokseumawe, which is usually only used as a resting place for fishermen in the area.
“Our staff in the field have met with refugees who say that they have traveled for three months,” said Rima Putra Shah, Director of the Geutanoyoë Foundation, an NGO that provides educational and psychosocial support for refugees in Indonesia and Malaysia.
“They traveled from India to Aceh using a small twin machine, a 100 sea boat,” he told Al Jazeera.
It is estimated that refugees, many of them women and children, initially traveling from camps in Bangladesh to waters off the coast of India, where their boat broke down and was set by Indian coast guards who gave them food and water equipment, but did not let them land ,
Indian beach planes are also estimated to have found that eight of the 90 refugees that initially sailed died on board.
The refugees were refused to return to Bangladesh, forcing the passengers to try to reach Malaysia before the next to land on Idaman Island.
“Of course they are in bad conditions and the island itself does not have facilities and is full of mosquitoes,” Shah said.
“They are near the land and wait for the decision whether they will be allowed to move to Aceh or not.”
