About 300 refugees arrived in Indonesia after many months at sea.

 

 

 

 

Nearly 300 Rohingya refugees have now arrived in Indonesia with reports that they spent about six months at sea, we believe they left Bangladesh on a march, and here they are moments after arriving in the Indonesian province of Aceh on Monday morning, there were 102 men and 181 women. And 14 children, and this is the wooden boat they were on, and the fishermen who helped them then spotted it on the beach and told the locals that they only had their belongings and that the only thing they had was supplies that they were able to cram into the boats now Details about them The journey is very vague , We believe they sailed from southern Bangladesh either at the end of March or early April with Malaysia as the destination, but it is believed that the boat was removed first from Malaysia and then from Thailand in both cases due to the restrictions imposed on them19 and then continued towards the northern coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, But it is also not clear how much they controlled their flight, which an NGO claims was being held at sea by human traffickers.Nearly 300 Rohingya refugees have now arrived in Indonesia with reports that they spent about six months at sea, we believe they left Bangladesh on a march, and here they are moments after arriving in the Indonesian province of Aceh on Monday morning, there were 102 men and 181 women. And 14 children, and this is the wooden boat they were on, and the fishermen who helped them then spotted it on the beach and told the locals that they only had their belongings and that the only thing they had was supplies that they were able to cram into the boats now Details about them The journey is very vague , We believe they sailed from southern Bangladesh either at the end of March or early April with Malaysia as the destination, but it is believed that the boat was removed first from Malaysia and then from Thailand in both cases due to the restrictions imposed on them19 and then continued towards the northern coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, But it is also not clear how much they controlled their flight, which an NGO claims was being held at sea by human traffickers.

 

As a group of this activity confirmed that this woman was transported at sea by human traffickers because some people on board the boat did not have enough money to pay the cost, uh, of this ship until they were taken into custody, as they were held hostage at sea by these smugglers. And we also heard that some of the women who were transported and their destination was Malaysia were supposed to marry the Rohingya refugees who were already in Malaysia in the first place well, we heard stories similar to these before returning in June, this boat arrived in parts of Indonesia the same part of Indonesia After four months at sea, a hundred Rohingya were on board, and they told us about their beatings by traffickers and the serious shortage of water and food. All these desperate experiences go back to the experience of the Rohingya in their home country, Myanmar. There they are a Muslim minority. After a military campaign in 2017, more than A million Rohingya crossed the border into Bangladesh, many rapid refugee camps were set up, this camp in Cox's Bazar is the largest refugee camp in the world and the appalling conditions have been exploited by smugglers who bring people Way out of Bangladesh Okay, let's talk to Bani Bhatnagar from the Save the Children Charity who spent time working in Cox's Bazar and is with us now or the allegations that these people could have been trafficked, does it sound right to you uh Well, yeah, I mean, uh, you know that it is very difficult to obtain very strong evidence of trafficking as you expect, smugglers try to hide their traces, but we know that there is unconfirmed evidence and we have certainly heard it from uh from smugglers exploiting the type of sea route, and we also know that smugglers, uh, uh, transport children in a manner Especially to places like India, but these boat trips I wanted an atmosphere I would like to say are very dangerous, we talked to refugees who have been rescued who talk about hell on earth, no food or water they drink for days on the end of the menace of hurricanes and the cruelty of the smugglers who pin their hopes They, uh, for a better life now, it is said that this last boat of refugees that was found on a beach in Aceh has been at sea for an amazing six months now, and the reason behind this is that there are countries in the region as you said, namely Thailand and Mali Zia has a policy of pushing boats back out into the sea after providing them with food and water Now refugees who are in distress at sea must be allowed to disembark, it is not only required under international humanitarian or humanitarian and maritime law, but it is also the right thing to do, and finally I spent some time In Cox's Bazar, have you met so many people who were willing to take this kind of extraordinary risk just to get themselves out of these situations? It seems that we are talking about a refugee camp, the largest refugee camp in the world uh with nearly a million refugees, nearly half A million of them are children, there is no livelihood opportunity, there are very limited learning opportunities uh for children and they are the communities there are almost completely dependent on help, so you can imagine what this does to stimulate people's desire to actually support themselves, so we are talking about families that pushed into Levels of despair to the point that they are willing to die at sea only to search for a better life.