More than 70 Rohingya individuals are “presumed dead or missing” following a tragic incident where a boat they were on capsized off the coast of Indonesia’s Aceh province. The UNHCR refugee agency reported on Friday that 75 others have been rescued.
In a joint statement with the International Organization for Migration, the UNHCR expressed concern, stating that if the death toll is confirmed, it would mark the largest loss of life so far this year.
The alert was raised on Wednesday when fishermen rescued six of the migrants. According to reports from a fishing community in Aceh, the migrants were found standing on the boat’s hull after it capsized due to high tides.
The Rohingya have been fleeing Myanmar for years, where they face persecution as an ethnic and religious minority. Actions by the Burmese military in 2016 and 2017 have been declared genocide by the US in 2022, making it one of only seven such designations since the Holocaust. The operations in Rakhine State were described in a report as “extreme, large-scale, and widespread.”
Extra Rohingya arrived in Indonesia final 12 months than earlier four years mixed
According to UNHCR data, over the past year, more than 2,300 Rohingya refugees have arrived in Indonesia, surpassing the total number of arrivals in the previous four years.
In January, the UNHCR reported that the death toll for 2023, with at least 569 Rohingya individuals dead or missing while attempting to escape Myanmar or Bangladesh, was the highest since 2014.
Babar Baloch, a spokesperson for UNHCR Asia, informed Reuters on Friday that the latest boat carried 151 people, of whom about 75 were rescued by local authorities, leaving the remainder “presumed dead or missing.”
Faisal Rahman, UNHCR’s protection associate in Aceh, described the surviving Rohingya as being in dire condition and stated they were being accommodated at a Red Cross facility in West Aceh.
There was no response from the immigration agency in Aceh to a request for comment.
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