Indonesia announced Tuesday it has decided to refuse to grant refuge to dozens of Rohingya passengers aboard a stranded boat.
Spotted by fishermen on Sunday, the wooden boa had run adrift off the coast of Bireuen, a district on the western island of Sumatra. It was carrying around 120 men, women, and children on board. The passengers had been at sea for 28 days, en route to Malaysia; some of them had fallen ill and one had died.
While the boat will be turned back, the country will help repair the boat and provide humanitarian aid, including food, medicine, and water. Following this, the boat will be directed back to international waters. “We will repair their boat and give them fuel and only monitor its movement to Malaysia,” said Aceh police spokesperson Winardy.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement on Tuesday that it is “concerned about the safety and lives of the refugees on board,” as the boat had suffered engine damage and must be allowed to dock.
“The Rohingya are not Indonesian citizens, we can’t just bring them in even as refugees. This is in line with government policy,” local navy official Dian Suryansyah told The Straits Times.
Amnesty International Indonesia’s Executive Director, Usman Hamid, also criticised Indonesia’s decision of turning back refugees, saying that by doing so, Indonesia had violated the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention, of which it is a signatory. “[Indonesia’s] decision to send a stricken boat back to Malaysia is unconscionable … international law clearly imposes obligations on states including Indonesia to protect human rights of refugees arriving on their shores,” he told Al Jazeera.
However, Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs countered Hamid by saying that its reluctance to help is due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Rohingya are an ethnic Muslim community largely based in Myanmar. The ongoing genocide against them since the 1970s, which peaked in 2017, has forced the community into refugee camps across the region, with little access to education, healthcare, or jobs.
Around one million Rohingya have sought refuge in neighbouring countries like Bangladesh. However, for decades now, both Bangladesh and Myanmar have refused to acknowledge them as citizens and each insists that they are “illegal immigrants” of the other, effectively rendering them stateless. The community has also been trying to gain refuge in India, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia for years.