More than 180 Rohingya refugees, who were adrift in the Indian Ocean for weeks, were allowed to land some passengers in the Indonesian province of Aceh on Monday.
At least 26 of the passengers had died in dire conditions, the UN Refugee Agency said on Tuesday, adding there will likely be more.
The wooden fishing boat, crammed with Rohingya men, women and children, set sail from southern Bangladesh on November 25, the BBC reported.
According to reports, the ship began to drift westward from Malaysian waters to the Indonesian seas after its engine broke down on December 4, and then into Indian waters near the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
Last week, Reuters reported that nearly 20 of the boat’s passengers may have died of thirst or hunger, or may have drowned.
The boat was approached by five Indian ships late last Tuesday, Reuters said citing a person familiar with the matter, after the UN Refugee Agency appealed to Indian and Indonesian authorities urging them to help the asylum seekers.
Family members, who were able to make occasional phone calls to the boat, said the passengers were starving. The Indian navy provided the refugees with food and water, and towed them back towards Indonesia, the BBC report said.
The boat was finally allowed to land on Monday night. Exhausted women and children were among the people who disembarked in a coastal village in Aceh’s Pidie district, Indonesian authorities said.
{{/usCountry}}The boat was finally allowed to land on Monday night. Exhausted women and children were among the people who disembarked in a coastal village in Aceh’s Pidie district, Indonesian authorities said.
{{/usCountry}}The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said that survivors told the agency that 26 people died during the long journey. One of the refugees, who identified himself as Rosyid, told The Associated Press that they left the refugee camp in Bangladesh at the end of November and drifted on the open sea. He said at least “20 of us died aboard due to high waves and sick, and their bodies were thrown into the sea”.
This is the second boat carrying Rohingya refugees to have arrived in Aceh in the past two days.
The Rohingya have long been persecuted in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which borders Bangladesh. For years many have fled to neighbouring states like Thailand and Bangladesh, and to Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia between November and April when seas are calmer.
A boat with 180 on board is thought to have sunk in early December, NGOs and family members say.
According to UNHCR, more than 2,000 people are reported to have taken risky sea journeys in the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal this year alone, and nearly 200 have reportedly died.
On Tuesday, UNHCR urged countries to help Rohingya Muslims stranded, saying, in a statement, that nearly 500 Rohingya have reached Indonesia in the past six weeks while “many others did not act despite numerous pleas and appeals for help.”
It said on Monday that 2022 could be one of the deadliest years at sea in almost a decade for the Rohingya with a growing number of them fleeing desperate conditions in refugee camps in Bangladesh.