Calls are growing for South-East Asian countries not to push boatloads of Rohingya asylum seekers back to sea, as Indonesian authorities say people rescued off the coast this week want to go to Australia.
Almost 100 Rohingya people were helped ashore by locals from fishing villages on the northern tip of the Indonesian province of Aceh before officials had decided to allow the people to disembark.
At least 79 of the rescued Rohingya are women and children, who have temporarily been sheltered in an abandoned Indonesian Immigration facility.
A coalition of Indonesia-based NGOs released a statement calling for the member states of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to renew pressure on Myanmar to “put an end to the crimes against humanity undergoing in the country”.
“ASEAN member states must open their arms to Rohingya refugees instead of rejecting those whose lives are at risk at sea,” the statement read.
However, discussions at the 36th ASEAN Summit on Friday, held virtually due to coronavirus, were dominated by regional economic recovery in the wake of the pandemic.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin told the Summit that: “We can no longer take more as our resources and capacity are already stretched, compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Rima Shah Putra, director of the Aceh-based Geutanyoe Foundation, told the ABC that locals had provided food and other charity to the rescued Rohingya.
Authorities undertook rapid COVID-19 testing among the asylum seekers with no positive cases.
But Mr Putra said some of the women were facing other medical issues: “They are suffering due to this long journey feeling itchy, hygienic issues the boat has been for five months at sea.”
He said the fishermen had acted to rescue the asylum seekers due to local customary law, which dictates they must assist anybody experiencing distress at sea.
The UN refugee agency’s country representative Anne Maymann applauded Indonesian authorities for allowing the people to disembark.
“Indonesia has several times been a country that has set an example to others in the region,” she said.
Amnesty International Indonesia’s executive director Usman Hamid said in a statement that the local community in Aceh had demonstrated the “best of humanity”.
“[The] disembarkation of Rohingya refugees is a moment of optimism and solidarity. It’s a credit to the community in Aceh who pushed hard and took risks so that these children, women and men could be brought to shore,” he said.
Acehnese fishermen also provided assistance in May 2015 when almost 1,000 Rohingya refugees arrived in the province.
The mostly-Muslim Rohingya people are the largest stateless population on earth, having fled brutal persecution in Myanmar for decades.
2020 ABC