PIDIE, Indonesia (AP) — Their screams and sobs could be heard from the ailing boat shortly after it came into view in the vastness of the Andaman Sea. There were small babies and children on board, as well as mothers and fathers begging for rescue.
The passengers were ethnic Rohingya Muslims who had fled increasing gang violence and rampant hunger in Bangladesh's squalid refugee camps, only to be stranded with a broken engine. For a moment, it seemed as if their salvation had come in the form of another boat carrying Rohingya refugees that had pulled up alongside them.
But those aboard the other boat – which was overloaded and beginning to leak – knew that if they allowed the distressed passengers onto their ship, it would sink. And everyone would die.
They wanted to help, but they also wanted to live.
Ethnic Rohingya women take shelter under a tent near a beach where they landed on Dec. 10 in Pidie, Aceh province, Indonesia, Saturday, Dec. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Reza Saifullah)
Since November, more than 1,500 Rohingya refugees who fled Bangladesh in rickety boats have landed in Indonesia's northern Aceh province – three quarters of them women and children. On Thursday, Indonesian authorities spotted another five boats approaching the coast of Aceh.
With so many Rohingya attempting to make the dangerous crossing in recent weeks, no one knows how many boats failed to make it and how many people died.
This account of two boats in distress – one was rescued, the other disappeared – was told to The Associated Press by five survivors of the ship that made it to shore.
It provides the first clues about the fate of the boat carrying up to 200 Rohingya refugees that has been missing for weeks. On December 2, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) issued an urgent message about the two boats in distress and urged countries to search for them.
But in the case of the missing boat, no one seems to have been looking.
From a gray, trash-strewn beach near where they stumbled ashore on Dec. 10, the survivors told the AP about their harrowing journey and the agonizing decisions they made along the way.
Muhammad Jubair, fourth from right, wearing a white skullcap, stands with other ethnic Rohingya near the tarpaulin tent where they have been taking shelter since landing on Dec. 10, in Pidie, Aceh province, Indonesia, Saturday, Dec. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Reza Saifullah)
“I remember feeling like we were going to end up together. We would sink together. “We would drown together,” said 31-year-old Muhammed Jubair, who, along with his three children, his wife and his brother-in-law, were among the 180 people on his boat who had to be rescued.
Tearful farewells
The story of the missing boat and its passengers begins like most Rohingya boat trips – with tearful farewell ceremonies in sweltering shelters in the camps of Bangladesh, where more than 750,000 Rohingya fled in 2017 after devastating military attacks in their native Myanmar.
In one of these shelters, Noor Fatima clutched her 14-year-old brother Muhammed Ansar and forced back tears as the boy began to cry along with the rest of her family. She knew she had to stay strong so he wouldn't be afraid of the journey ahead.
Ansar was the only son in the family – the only one who had a chance of getting an education and a job in Indonesia. They hoped that one day he would earn enough money to support them in the camps. There were few alternatives: Bangladesh prohibits camp residents from working, so their survival depends entirely on food rations, which have been cut this year.
Increasing famine as a result of food cuts and a rise in gang violence triggered the latest exodus by sea from the camps.
Ethnic Rohingya men perform evening prayers at their camp in Pidie, Aceh province, Indonesia, Friday, December 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Reza Saifullah)
It was November 20 and Ansar would be making the trip with several relatives, including his 20-year-old cousin Samira Khatun and her three-year-old son. As her brother left, Fatima told herself that many other boats had made it safely to Indonesia. Surely he would do it too.
The next day, Samira called Fatima's family and her father and told them they were on board the boat. “We’re on our way,” she said. “Pray for us.”
Abdu Shukkur did not know that his bright and lively 12-year-old daughter Kajoli was planning to escape the camps until a human trafficker called him and said he would take her to Indonesia by boat.
Shukkur begged the trafficker to leave Kajoli behind, but her friends were traveling by boat and she wanted to go with them. Later, he received a call from Kajoli herself when she was already on board.
All he could do was pray.
THE BOATS COME TOGETHER
The boat that Jubair and his family were on was chugging across the sea with 180 Rohingya en route to Indonesia. It was overloaded, but the engine still worked.
Days into the 1,800-kilometer (1,100-mile) journey, passengers on Jubair's boat spotted another ship rocking in the waves. It was Kajoli, Ansar and Samira's boat – their engine was broken, water was coming in and the passengers were panicking.
Rujinah, who goes by only one name, holds her baby as she sits in a tent at the camp set up near the beach where she and other ethnic Rohingya live on Friday, Dec. 10, in Pidie, Aceh province, Indonesia, landed 15. 2023. (AP Photo/Reza Saifullah)
Those on Jubair's boat feared that if they got too close, people on the stricken ship would jump on their boat and sink them all, says one of Jubair's fellow passengers, Rujinah, who goes by only one name and was on board with five of them Children.
Their fears were not unfounded. As Jubair's boat approached, between 20 and 30 people prepared to jump, said Zakir Hussain, another passenger.
The captain of Jubair's boat shouted to those aboard the stricken ship to stay put. He then asked for a rope so he could tie the two boats together. The captain told the passengers of the other boat that he would tow their ship behind him and that they would search for land together.
According to Hussain, their captain also issued a warning: “If you try to jump into our boat, we will not help you.”
What happened next is controversial.
Around the same time, Shukkur, Kajoli's father, said that his nephew called the captain of Kajoli's boat and informed him that he and his family had abandoned the stricken ship and were on the boat that came to their aid.
However, survivors interviewed by the AP in Aceh either denied this or said they did not see it.
Tied together, the two boats began to move through the water. And then, two or three nights later, a violent storm hit them. Pounding waves brought the boats to a standstill and destroyed the engine of Jubair's ship.
Now, in the dark, they both drifted helplessly.
Zakir Hussain (right) and other ethnic Rohingya men wash in a stream near their camp before offering evening prayers, Friday, Dec. 15, 2023, in Pidie, Aceh province, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Reza Saifullah)
A tragedy occurs
At that time, the passengers on Jubair's boat say, the ropes between the two ships were cut. No one says they saw it happen – but what they did see was the other boat drifting off to their right.
Above the howling wind and choppy surf, Jubair could hear the passengers on the other boat pleading for their lives.
“They cried and shouted loudly: 'Our ropes are broken!' Our ropes are broken! Please help us!' But how could we help?” says Jubair. “We would die with them.”
The other boat drifted further away, passengers say, until it disappeared from sight.
On Jubair's boat, people began to moan.
“They are Muslims too. They are also part of our community,” says Rujinah. “That’s why our people also cried for her.”
THE RESCUE
For days, Jubair and his fellow passengers languished at sea, without food or water. Eventually she spotted a plane and a Navy ship arrived, delivering food, water and medicine. The passengers say they don't know which country sent the rescue ship that towed them into Indonesian waters and then left when their boat was close to land.
At that time, her captain and another crew member fled the ship on a small fishing boat, says Jubair. Left behind, the exhausted passengers worked together to bring the battered boat to the beach, where they spent their nights under tarpaulins. They wash and drink from a nearby stream.
Ethnic Rohingya men perform evening prayers at their camp in Pidie, Aceh province, Indonesia, Friday, December 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Reza Saifullah)
Faced with an increasingly hostile reception from locals, they have no idea what their future will hold in Indonesia. But at least, they say, they are alive. They hope the passengers on the other boat feel the same way.
“I feel very sorry for them because we were in the same situation and we are safe now,” says Hussain. “We just pray that the boat comes to shore and that the passengers stay alive.”
The torment of the unknown
Weeks have passed and the families of the people on board the lost boat have heard nothing. Ann Maymann, the UNHCR representative in Indonesia, called on regional governments to launch a search.
“There are hundreds of people here who are, at best, obviously desperate and, at worst, not even desperate anymore,” Maymann told the AP. “These nations in this region have fully capable and equipped search and rescue capabilities.”
The boat carrying a group of Rohingya Muslims lies on the beach where it landed on Saturday, December 16, 2023, in Pidie, Aceh province, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Reza Saifullah)
The governments of regional countries reached by the AP either did not respond to requests for comment or said they were unaware of the boat.
Meanwhile, a familiar sense of fear has taken hold in Bangladeshi camps, mourning the 2022 loss of another boat carrying 180 people that sank, according to an AP investigation.
Fatima can hardly sleep as she waits for news from Ansar, her little brother. One way or another, she says, they just want answers.
One night, Fatima says, Ansar came to her mother in a dream and told her he was on an island. The family believes he lives somewhere.
Shukkur also had a dream about his daughter Kajoli, but in it her boat sank. He believes that his little girl and all her traveling companions are dead.
His pain echoes through the camp's crowded warren of quarters.
“Many parents,” he says, “are screaming for their children.”
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Gelineau reported from Sydney; Tarigan reported from Jakarta, Indonesia.
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Follow AP's migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration.