Boat carrying dozens of Rohingya capsizes off Indonesian coast

Indonesian fishermen were scrambling to rescue dozens of Rohingya people on Wednesday after their boat capsized in waters off Aceh province due to high tides, a regional fisheries chief said.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) estimates that around 2,000 Rohingya have arrived in Indonesia since October, including groups who have fled to Southeast Asian countries over the past year, mostly to Aceh. Persecuted religious minorities in Myanmar.

Miftach Tjut Adek, the head of the province’s fishing community, said more than 50 Rohingya were killed after a boat capsized due to high tides near the city of Mirab in West Asia’s province. People stand on the hull.

“We, as fishermen, have an obligation to help them,” he told Reuters, adding that rescuers braved bad weather to pull them from the sinking building.

Reuters could not immediately determine how many Rohingya were in the water or where they were headed.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned about the situation in Mirabeau”.

“This is an emergency situation and our priority should be to work with authorities and local communities to save lives,” it said, adding that it could not immediately confirm the total number of Rohingya or whether there had been any deaths in the group.

Siazi local government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

For years, the Rohingya left Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they were widely viewed as foreign interlopers from South Asia, stripped of citizenship and subjected to abuse.

Every year from November to April, when seas are calmer, the Rohingya travel by wooden boat to neighboring Thailand and Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The UN refugee agency said in January that at least 569 Rohingya died or went missing while trying to flee Myanmar or Bangladesh in 2023, the highest number since 2014.