BANDA ACEH: A wooden boat carrying nearly 200 Rohingya refugees, a majority of them women and children, landed on Indonesia’s western coast on Sunday, police said.
The ship is the fifth boat carrying Rohingya refugees to land in Indonesia since November, according to authorities.
Thousands of the mostly Muslim Rohingya, heavily persecuted in Myanmar, risk their lives each year on long and expensive sea journeys — often in poor-quality boats — in an attempt to reach Malaysia or Indonesia.
The wooden vessel — which carried 69 men, 75 women and 40 children — arrived at around 02:30 p.m. local time (0730 am GMT) on a beach in Indonesia’s westernmost province of Aceh, local police chief Irwan Fahmi Ramli said Sunday.
“They are generally healthy, but there is one pregnant woman among them, and four people are sick,” Ramli said.
“We had coordinated with doctors who will come here to conduct an initial health check of these refugees, particularly those who are sick.”
He added that the refugees will be transferred to a local government facility.
According to one of the passengers, the boat departed Bangladesh on December 10.
“We feel very happy because we arrived here. Already, our engine is damaged and also we don’t have food in the boat,” 26-year-old Fairus told reporters.
Around a million Rohingya were estimated to be living in refugee camps in Bangladesh after they fled persecution in neighboring Myanmar in 2017.
Four vessels carrying Rohingya refugees have already landed in Indonesia in November and December last year, carrying a total of more than 400 passengers.
More than 2,000 Rohingya are believed to have attempted the risky journey in 2022, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR — at levels similar to 2020.
The agency estimated nearly 200 Rohingya have died or remain missing after attempting hazardous sea crossings last year.
But the figure could rise after relatives of around 180 Rohingya refugees that were on another vessel drifting at sea for weeks lost contact and were feared dead.
The UNHCR could not confirm their deaths.
But spokesman Babar Baloch said if true, it would make 2022 the deadliest year for Rohingya crossings since 2013 and 2014, when more than 900 and 700 were reported dead or missing respectively.
Relatively affluent Malaysia is a favored destination for the refugees, but many land first in Muslim-majority Indonesia, seen as more welcoming.
Nearly 200 Rohingya refugees land in Indonesia in latest boat arrival
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Nearly 200 Rohingya refugees land in Indonesia in latest boat arrival
- Thousands of the mostly Muslim Rohingya risk their lives each year on long sea journeys in an attempt to reach Malaysia or Indonesia
Top Australian writers’ festival canceled after Palestinian author barred
SYDNEY: One of Australia’s top writers’ festivals was canceled on Tuesday, after 180 authors boycotted the event and its director resigned saying she could not be party to silencing a Palestinian author and warned moves to ban protests and slogans after the Bondi Beach mass shooting threatened free speech.
Louise Adler, the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, said on Tuesday she was quitting her role at the Adelaide Writers’ Week in February, following a decision by the festival’s board to disinvite a Palestinian-Australian author.
The novelist and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah said the move to bar her was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday announced a national day of mourning would be held on January 22 to remember the 15 people killed in last month’s shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach.
Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by the Islamic State militant group, and the incident sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism, and prompted state and federal government moves to tighten hate speech laws.
The Adelaide Festival board said on Tuesday its decision last week to disinvite Abdel-Fattah, on the grounds it would not be culturally sensitive for her to appear at the literary event “so soon after Bondi,” was made “out of respect for a community experiencing the pain from a devastating event.”
“Instead, this decision has created more division and for that we express our sincere apologies,” the board said in a statement.
The event would not go ahead and remaining board members will step down, it added.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, British author Zadie Smith, Australian author Kathy Lette, Pulitzer Prize-winning American Percival Everett and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis are among the authors who said they would no longer appear at the festival in South Australia state, Australian media reported.
The festival board on Tuesday apologized to Abdel-Fattah for “how the decision was represented.”
“This is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history,” it added.
Abdel-Fattah wrote on social media that she did not accept the apology, saying she had nothing to do with the Bondi attack, “nor did any Palestinian.”
Adler earlier wrote in The Guardian that the board’s decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah “weakens freedom of speech and is the harbinger of a less free nation, where lobbying and political pressure determine who gets to speak and who doesn’t.”
The South Australian state government has appointed a new festival board.
