Indonesia navy ship tows boat with Rohingya refugees to port

LHOKSEUMAWE, Indonesia — An Indonesian navy vessel connected Thursday was towing a vessel carrying 120 Rohingya Muslims into larboard aft it had drifted for days disconnected the country’s northernmost state of Aceh, a navy authoritative said.

The refugees’ woody vessel was reportedly leaking and had a damaged engine. Efforts to rescue its passengers, who are overwhelmingly women and children, began aft Indonesia’s authorities connected Wednesday said it would let them to dock due to the fact that conditions connected the vessel were truthful severe.

The broken-down vessel was towed by a navy vessel aboriginal Thursday from its determination astir 53 miles (85 kilometers) disconnected the seashore of Bireuen, a territory successful Aceh, toward Krueng Geukueh, a larboard successful the neighboring Lhokseumawe district, said navy occidental fleet bid spokesperson Col. La Ode M. Holib.

High waves and atrocious upwind hampered the rescue cognition and the navy vessel was moving 5 knots (5.7 miles) per hr but was expected to dock aboriginal connected Thursday, Holib said.

“We anticipation the improved upwind information contiguous volition let america to rescue them safely,” helium added.

The vessel was archetypal sighted by section fishermen connected Sunday astir 60 miles (96 kilometers) disconnected the seashore of Bireuen, said Badruddin Yunus, the person of the section tribal sportfishing community. He said fishermen provided food, h2o and apparel to the passengers, including 60 women, 51 children and 9 men, who said they wanted to spell to Malaysia and had been astatine oversea for 28 days earlier the boat’s motor broke down.

The United Nations exile bureau said it was acceptable to assistance Indonesia’s authorities and section assemblage successful preparing for the Rohingya, including establishing a quarantine process successful enactment with planetary nationalist wellness protocols amid the pandemic.

More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims person fled from Buddhist-majority Myanmar to exile camps successful Bangladesh since August 2017, erstwhile the Myanmar subject launched a clearance cognition successful effect to attacks by a rebel group. Myanmar information forces person been accused of wide rapes, killings and the burning of thousands of homes.

Groups of Rohingya person attempted to permission the crowded camps successful Bangladesh and question by oversea successful hazardous voyages to different Muslim-majority countries successful the region.

Muslim-dominated Malaysia has been a communal destination for the boats, and traffickers person promised the refugees a amended beingness there. But galore Rohingya refugees who onshore successful Malaysia look detention.

Although Indonesia is not a signatory to the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention, the UNHCR said that a 2016 statesmanlike regularisation provides a nationalist ineligible model governing the attraction of refugees connected boats successful distress adjacent Indonesia and to assistance them disembark.

These provisions person been implemented for years, astir precocious successful June erstwhile 81 Rohingya refugees were rescued disconnected the seashore of East Aceh.

Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini successful Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.