Dozens Of Rohingya Feared Dead Or Missing At Sea As Indonesia Ends Search

Meulaboh, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd Mar, 2024) Dozens of Rohingya refugees are feared dead or missing after their boat capsized off Indonesia's westernmost coast this week, the United Nations said Friday, as local rescuers called off the search despite survivor accounts many were swept away.

The mostly Muslim Rohingya are heavily persecuted in Myanmar, and thousands risk their lives each year on long and expensive sea journeys, often on flimsy boats, to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia.

Authorities staged a dramatic rescue Thursday of 69 Rohingya who had been adrift at sea for weeks before their boat and another trying to help them capsized a day earlier, with many found clinging to the hull of an overturned vessel.

Survivors told local authorities that as many as 151 refugees were onboard the boat.

If those still missing are confirmed to have died, it would represent the biggest loss of life for the Rohingya at sea this year, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

"The fear is for those out of the 151, that haven't been so far rescued, is that those lives have been lost or they have gone missing," UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch told AFP.

But local authorities nixed the search earlier on Friday because there was no list of passengers.

"The search ended on Thursday. All Rohingya refugees on top of the boat yesterday have been rescued," Muhammad Fathur Rachman, an official from the search and rescue agency in Aceh, said through a spokesperson.

The people rescued included 40 men, 18 women and 11 children who were found off Aceh Province on Thursday.

Six others, including four women and two men, were rescued by fishermen a day earlier.

But rescuer Rachman said there was "no additional information that we received about missing persons, and there is no manifest of the boat".

"Our analysis is the boat cannot hold 150 people."

A protection associate for the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), Faisal Rahman, told AFP that one of the survivors said "the boat took 151 people -- once the boat capsized, approximately around 50 people (were) maybe missing and passed away".