February 27, 2013
AFP
COT TRUENG, Indonesia: Fishermen have rescued more than 100 ethnic
Rohingya asylum seekers from Myanmar who were found drifting in a wooden
boat off western Indonesia, an official said Wednesday.
The 121 Rohingya, including six women and two children, were found
adrift late Tuesday by fishermen around 25 kilometres (15 miles) from
the village of Cot Trueng, on the northernmost tip of Sumatra island in
Aceh province.
"Their boat ran out of petrol as they tried to sail from Myanmar to
Thailand," village chief Mukhtar Samsyah told AFP, adding that they had
fled Myanmar to escape sectarian conflict.
He said the Rohingya were found in a weak condition but had recovered after being given food, water and a place to sleep.
"They've all been sent to an immigration detention centre in Lhokseumawe city," he said.
The UN considers the Rohingya, a stateless Muslim ethnic group, one of
the most persecuted minorities in the world, and Myanmar views its
roughly 800,000 Rohingya as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, denying them
citizenship.
Buddhist-Muslim unrest in the western Myanmar state of Rakhine has left
at least 180 people dead and more than 110,000 displaced since June
2012.
Almost 6,000 Rohingya fleeing the violence have illegally entered Thai
waters since October, the Thai army said earlier this month.
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