LHOKSEUMAWE
\nHuman traffickers left dozens of Rohingya refugees, including children, stranded on a shoreline in westernmost Indonesia on Thursday, while six dead bodies were found nearby, local officials said.
\nMembers of the persecuted minority risk their lives each year on long and dangerous sea journeys, often crowding into rickety boats in the hopes of reaching Malaysia or Indonesia.
\nThe refugees were abandoned before dawn on Thursday around 100 meters off a beach in Aceh Province, Saiful Anwar, a village official in East Aceh, told AFP.
\nThe group included 46 women, 37 men and seven children, he said, while locals found two bodies on the shore and four floating in the sea.
\n\u201cAccording to information from residents, these people were stranded at around 4 am (2100 GMT). It seems like there was a boat that brought them,\u201d Saiful said.
\nEight sick refugees were taken for medical treatment, he said.
\nEast Aceh acting district head Amrullah M. Ridha told reporters the refugees would be kept in tents on the beach until authorities sheltered them.
\nThe UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said it knew about the arrivals but could offer no further information. Acting Aceh Governor Safrizal, who goes by one name, told reporters \u201chuman trafficking mafia activity\u201d was to blame for the latest arrivals.
\nIt is the third group of arrivals in western Indonesia this month, with more than 150 refugees landing in Aceh and another 140 arriving in North Sumatra province.
\nAccording to UNHCR, 2,500 Rohingya arrived by boat in Aceh between January 2023 and March 2024, as many as had arrived in Indonesia in the previous eight years.
\nThe mostly Muslim ethnic group faces persecution in Myanmar, and many have fled military crackdowns, seeking shelter in sprawling refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh.
\nEvery year, thousands of Rohingya attempt the perilous 4,000-kilometer journey (2,500 miles) from Bangladesh to Malaysia, fueling a multi-million dollar human-smuggling operation that often involves stopovers in Indonesia.
\nIndonesia is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention and says it cannot be compelled to take in the refugees, calling instead on neighboring countries to share the burden.
\nMany Acehnese, who themselves have memories of decades of bloody conflict, are sympathetic to the plight of their fellow Muslims, but others say their patience has been tested by the annual arrivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LHOKSEUMAWE Human traffickers left dozens of Rohingya refugees, including children, stranded on a shoreline in westernmost Indonesia on Thursday, while six dead bodies were found nearby, local officials said. Members of the persecuted minority risk their lives each year on long and dangerous sea journeys, often crowding into rickety boats in the hopes of reaching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440865,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-440852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n