Rohingya crisis in Indonesia a ‘ticking time bomb’ if political indifference, misinformation continue: analysts

South China Morning Post
Johannes Nugroho
Published: 6 Apr 2024

• Analysts point to social-media disinformation to ‘discredit’ and ‘demonise’ Rohingya refugees in the lead-up to the presidential election in February
• They say the government has not been inclined to counter such narratives, which have stoked paranoia about the refugees and led to conflict
  

Rohingya refugees rest in a temporary shelter at the Indonesian Red Cross Office, after being evacuated from the sea at Meulaboh, West Aceh, Indonesia, on March 22. Photo: EPA-EFE

 

The orange truck crammed with 75 Rohingya survivors of a capsized boat was told to hurry along by Indonesian police in Beureugang, West Aceh, as dozens of angry villagers gave chase, shouting “[we] reject the presence of refugees here!”
Footage of the incident on March 21 was screened by a number of television channels across Indonesia and observers say the growing hostility is nothing new, attributing it to misinformation campaigns and political indifference towards the plight of Rohingya refugees in the country.

Indonesian interest must be considered in Rohingya refugee issue: Govt

ANTARA
April 5, 2024 

Rohingnya migrants get a health check upon arrival at the Meulaboh Jetty Harbor, West Aceh, Aceh, Thursday (March 21, 2024). ANTARA FOTO/Syifa Yulinnas/Lmo/foc.

Banda Aceh, Aceh (ANTARA) - The Aceh Office of Indonesia's Law and Human Rights Ministry stressed that the handling of Rohingya refugees in Aceh must take into account the country's national interest.

Angry Indonesians in Aceh again storm a shelter, push Rohingya out

Benar News
Pizaro Gozali Idrus
2024.03.27
Jakarta

A Rohingya refugee looks out of a National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) vessel after he and many other refugees were rescued from their capsized boat in waters off the coast of Aceh, Indonesia, March 21, 2024 Zahlul Akbar/AF

For the second time in three months, a belligerent and resentful crowd of locals in Indonesia’s Aceh province made authorities move dozens of newly arrived Rohingya refugees from their shelter by storming the facility, officials said Wednesday.

Indonesia's rescue of Rohingya refugees at sea is a reminder of an ordeal that began in Myanmar

The Star
Saturday, 23 Mar 2024 

Newly arrived Rohingya refugees sleep at their shelter in Meulaboh, West Aceh, on Saturday, March 23, 2024. - AFP

YANGON (AP): A dramatic story of survival and rescue off the western coast of Indonesia’s Aceh province has put the spotlight again on the plight of ethnic Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar who make extremely dangerous voyages across the Indian Ocean to seek better lives.

Fake news, online hate swell Indonesia anti-Rohingya sentiment

France 24
Issued on: 03/02/2024 

Jakarta (AFP) – Arriving on a rickety boat in western Indonesia from squalid Bangladesh camps after weeks at sea late last year, hundreds of Rohingya refugees came to shore only to be turned around and pushed back. 

In December, hundreds of people entered a government building in Banda Aceh hosting 137 Rohingya, kicking refugees' belongings and demanding they be deported © CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN / AFP/File 

 

The persecuted Myanmar minority were previously welcomed in the ultra-conservative Aceh province, with many locals sympathetic because of their own long history of war. But a wave of more than 1,500 refugees in recent months has been treated differently.

Rohingya refugees in Indonesia still hope for a better future

Al Jazeera
By Jessica Washington
Published On 26 Jan 202426 Jan 2024

On the beach and in a car park, Rohingya refugees are taking shelter wherever they can amid a hostile reception in Aceh.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says more than 70 percent of the Rohingya who have arrived in Indonesia in recent months are women and children. [Jessica Washington/Al Jazeera]

Pidie, Indonesia – In December, Abdul Karim boarded a wooden boat from Bangladesh with his wife and two sons, with aspirations for a better life for the whole family.

Indonesia: Protect Newly Arrived Rohingya Refugees

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
January 16, 2024

Investigate, Prevent Anti-Rohingya Violence in Aceh

Ethnic Rohingya women and children board a truck as they are being relocated from their temporary shelter at the basement of a community hall following a protest rejecting Rohingya refugees in Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia, Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023. © 2023 AP Photo/Reza Saifullah

(Jakarta) – Indonesian authorities should immediately stop all pushbacks of boats carrying ethnic Rohingya refugees, and investigate and end all assaults on refugees, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should allow them to disembark in the nearest safe port, provide protection and humanitarian assistance, and investigate online incitement of violence against them.

Indonesian Church group slams anti-Rohingya campaign

UCA News
Published: January 06, 2024 

Hundreds of Muslim refugees have arrived in the western region of the country from Bangladesh in recent week.

Newly arrived Rohingya refugees rest at a beach on Sabang island in Indonesia's Aceh province. (Photo:Chaideer Mayhuddin/AFP) 

Catholic charity Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) has joined other groups to deplore the ongoing smear campaign on social media sites vilifying Rohingya refugees in Indonesia. 

 

A series of anti-Rohingya posts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X, formerly Twitter, prompted the Indonesian government and media outlets to publish fact-checked articles over the past few days.

Gov't considers humanitarian aspect while handling Rohingya refugees

ANTARA
December 30, 2023 

Rohingya refugees at Aceh Besar. (ANTARA)

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Ministry of Law and Human Rights' Director General of Human Rights, Dhahana Putra, stated that the handling of Rohingya refugees in Indonesia should prioritize universal humanitarian aspects while still considering the interests of local communities.

At least 5 Rohingya refugee boats detected off Indonesian coast

FOX NEWS
December 21, 2023 

Muslim-majority Indonesia is a common destination for refugees fleeing Burmese oppression

 

Indonesian authorities detected at least five boats packed tight with refugees approaching shores of Aceh province, officials said Thursday.

The boats are the latest in a surge of vessels that have arrived in Aceh, most carrying Rohingya refugees from southern Bangladesh, where the persecuted Muslim minority fled in 2017 following attacks by the military in their homeland of Burma.

Residents in Western Indonesia Protest Mounting Rohingya Refugee Arrivals

THE I DIPLOMATS
By Sebastian Strangio
December 19, 2023

The protest in Aceh follows the arrival of more than 1,500 refugees, mostly women and children, since last month. 

Rohingya Refugees cross into Bangladesh after fleeing voilent attacks in Myanmar's Rakhine State,September 12'2017 ( Credit : Depositphotos)

More than 200 people protested yesterday in western Indonesia against the continued arrival of Rohingya refugees by boat, claiming that the sudden influx of people threatens to overwhelm local communities.

Aceh Villagers Refuse Entry to Rohingya Refugees

JAKATA GLOBE
Taufik Kelana
December 3, 2023

Newly-arrived ethnic Rohingya women, part of a group who was denied landing a few times by local residents, rest at a temporary shelter in Bireun, Aceh province, Indonesia Monday, Nov. 20, 2023. Almost 1,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar have arrived by boat in Indonesia

Sabang. Residents of a secluded village in Aceh, the westernmost province of Indonesia, declined entry to 139 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on Sunday.

The refugees, consisting mostly of women and children, reached the coastal area of Ie Meulee village in Sabang on Saturday.

However, they found themselves stranded on the beach as local residents resisted their arrival, preventing them from moving further into residential areas.

ရိုဟင်ဂျာ ၁၀၀ ကျော် အင်ဒိုနီးရှားကို ထပ်ရောက်

VOA
ဗွီအိုအေ (မြန်မာပိုင်း)
၀၂ ဒီဇင်ဘာ၊ ၂၀၂၃ 

Rohingya refugees disembark at Ulee Madon, North Aceh, Indonesia, on Nov. 16, 2023. Some 250 Rohingya Muslims are afloat off the coast of Indonesia after two attempts to land were rejected by local residents.

အင်ဒိုနီးရှားနိုင်ငံ အနောက်ပိုင်း Aceh ပြည်နယ်ထဲကို အမျိုးသမီးနဲ့ ကလေးငယ်တွေအပါအဝင် ရိုဟင်ဂျာဒုက္ခသည် ၁၃၉ ယောက် ဒီကနေ့ ဒီဇင်ဘာ ၂ ရက်နေ့မှာ ထပ်ရောက်လာတယ်လို့အင်ဒိုနီးရှား အာဏာပိုင်တွေပြောကြားခဲ့ပါတယ်။

Third batch of around 200 Rohingya arrive in Indonesia's Aceh

Reuters
November 16, 2023

Rohingya women and children wait to be transported to a temporary shelter, as they arrive in Pidie Regency, Aceh province, Indonesia, November 14, 2023. REUTERS/Riska Munawarah/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights

 

JAKARTA, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Around 200 Rohingya reached the shores of Indonesia's Aceh province on Thursday, the head of the provincial fishing community said, the third boat to arrive in as many days and taking total arrivals over this period to about 600.

Almost 200 Rohingya arrive by boat in Indonesia's Aceh

CNA
14 Nov 2023  

Rohingya refugees walk on a road after they landed on the shores of Indonesia's Aceh province, at a camp in Ladong, Aceh province, Indonesia, on Jan 11, 2023. (Photo: REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan)

JAKARTA: Almost two hundred Rohingya, most of them women and children, arrived by boat at Indonesia's Aceh province on Tuesday (Nov 14), the chief of a local fishing community said, the latest batch of people to have fled Myanmar by boat this year.

About 100 Rohingya arrive by boat in Indonesia's Aceh

dunia news
Tue, 14 Nov 2023 

Rohingya fled a deadly crackdown in 2017 by Myanmar's military and living in neighbouring countries

 

JAKARTA (Reuters) – About one hundred Rohingya landed in Indonesia's Aceh province on Tuesday, the chief of a local fishing community said, the latest batch of people to have fled Myanmar by boat this year.

Almost 200 Rohingya arrive by boat in Indonesia's Aceh

REUTERS

Hidayatullah Tahjuddin
November 14, 2023

JAKARTA, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Almost two hundred Rohingya, most of them women and children, arrived by boat at Indonesia's Aceh province on Tuesday, the chief of a local fishing community said, the latest batch of people to have fled Myanmar by sea this year.

Many members of the ethnic Rohingya Muslims, a persecuted minority in Myanmar, have for years boarded rickety wooden boats to escape to Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia as well as Thailand.

Rohingya are drowning at sea. Asia’s leaders are to blameAljazeera

Aljazeera
OPINION,Tun Khin
BROUK
Published On 26 Jan 2023

Leaders from Southeast and South Asia are acting both illegally and immorally by not helping Rohingya “boat people”.

FILE — Rohingya refugees fleeing a genocide in Myanmar and overcrowded conditions in Bangladesh camps, often spend months at sea, exploited by traffickers because governments in South and Southeast Asia won't let their boats land. This photo from June 25, 2020, shows Rohingya refugees in Lhokseumawe in North Aceh Regency [Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP]

 

In early January, a boat with 185 Rohingya refugees washed ashore on the coast of Indonesia’s Aceh province. They had spent weeks at sea in desperate conditions, fleeing cramped and overcrowded camps in Bangladesh in search of a better life. More than half were women and children.

Sadly, they are far from alone. Since November last year, at least three more boats have landed in Aceh after similarly perilous journeys, carrying hundreds of refugees, with at least 20 people dying at sea. According to UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), thousands of Rohingya, including women and children, resorted to perilous boat journeys in 2022.

Boat Carrying 184 Rohingya Refugees Lands in Western Indonesia

THE I DIPLOMAT

Sebastian Strangio
January 09, 2023

The leaky wooden vessel is just the latest to reach the shores of Aceh, as more and more refugees undertake the dangerous ocean crossings. 

A wooden boat carrying 184 Rohingya Muslim refugees has landed in western Indonesia after a long and perilous journey from Bangladesh – a sign that last year’s rash of ocean voyages is set to continue into 2023.

According to The Associated Press, the boat touched land at Kuala Gigieng beach in Aceh Besar regency, in Aceh on the western tip of the island of Sumatra, yesterday. The group of 184 people (Reuters reported the total number as 185), which included a pregnant woman and children, reportedly set off from Bangladesh, where the inhabitants were seeking to escape the hardships of the refugee camps around Cox’s Bazar.

Hundreds of Rohingya refugees arrive in Indonesia looking for new opportunities

Global NEWS

The Associated Press 

January 8, 2023

 A second group of Rohingya Muslims arrived in Indonesia’s northernmost province of Aceh after weeks at sea, officials said Monday. They arrived off Indonesia's coast as another vessel carrying 180 refugees was feared to have sunk – Dec 26, 2022

 

More than 100 weak and hungry Rohingya Muslim refugees were among the latest group to reach ashore in Indonesia on Sunday after a long and dangerous journey aboard a wooden boat.