Indonesia has stepped up maritime patrols in the Aceh region to prevent the arrival of new boats carrying Rohingya refugees, more than a thousand of whom have disembarked in a week, police and local officials said Saturday.
“Police are patrolling around the clock to prevent Rohingya refugees from arriving in eastern Aceh,” AKBP police chief Andy Rahmansyah said in a statement.
Police ordered “to intensify surveillance in coastal areas both on the coast and in the Strait of Malacca to prevent the arrival of Rohingyas,” the statement said.
Since November 14, more than a thousand Rohingya refugees have arrived in Aceh province in Indonesia’s far west. This is the highest number of arrivals since 2017.
Villagers tried to push refugee boats back into the sea last week, but authorities eventually picked up the migrants and transported them to a makeshift shelter.
The predominantly Muslim Rohingya are persecuted in Burma and every year thousands of them risk their lives on dangerous and costly sea journeys from Bangladesh, mostly aboard makeshift boats.
Bangladesh is home to around a million Rohingyas, including around 750,000 who fled repression by the Burmese army in 2017 and are being investigated by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for “acts of genocide”.
Patrols increased in northern Aceh on Friday as fishermen reported spotting a Rohingya boat two nautical miles (3.6 km) from the coast, village leader Amirudin Ismail told AFP. by Tanoh Anoe. The boat has not been seen since.
Fishermen also took part in these patrols, Naharuddin, chief of fishermen in Dewantara district north of Aceh, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP. “When the fishermen went to sea, we asked them to keep their eyes open,” he said.
Many Aceh residents have long been aware of the plight of this Muslim minority. But some are now showing hostility to them and complaining about the arrival of these migrants, who are draining their already limited resources and sometimes coming into conflict with local populations.
Experts fear Indonesia will be the next country to tighten controls at its borders to prevent the deportation of Rohingyas, while neighboring Malaysia, Thailand and India have closed their doors to them.
Indonesia is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention and says it is not obliged to accept these refugees.