Transterra Media

Muslim Rohingya people fleeing persecution in Burma and Bangladeshis escaping poverty in their country have found welcoming shores in Aceh, North Indonesia, after gruesome and dangerous journeys in the sea at the hands of mafias of human trafficking. In early May, thousands of them found themselves at the centre of a regional emergency when Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia refused to accept them.

After Thailand cracked down on human trafficking networks who had been operating in the region for years, the traffickers abandoned the boats, leaving their victims adrift with virtually no food and water. The Rohingya and Bangladeshi have been paying human smugglers for years to take them to Malaysia. Many of these smugglers turned out to be traffickers who held their human cargo hostage in camps along the border between Thailand and Malaysia until their families paid ransoms of thousands of dollars.

On 20 May, Malaysia and Indonesia finally agreed to allow the boats ashore after pushing them back to the sea for two weeks. Before that, at a time when the policy of their governments was to deny entry to the Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi migrants, fishermen form the province of Aceh, in Indonesia, rescued three boats carrying almost 2,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshi people, defying the orders from the Indonesian Navy.

The Rohingya, widely regarded in Myanmar as Bangladeshi interlopers despite tracing their ancestry in the country for generations, were stripped of citizenship in 1982 and have lived under apartheid-like conditions ever since. Their situation worsened in 2012, when a wave of sectarian violence between the Rakhine Buddhist majority and the Muslim minority engulfed Rakhine State, leaving dozens of dead. The violence also left 140,000 internally displaced people, mostly Rohingya confined in overcrowded camps lacking the most basic facilities.

With scarce means of livelihood and virtually no access to health care or education, in recent years an increasing number of Rohingya have taken their chances embarking to Malaysia. Economic migrants from Bangladesh have increasingly joined the Rohingya. They are fleeing poverty in one of the most impoverished and overpopulated nations in Asia.

While the Bangladeshi migrants are certain that they will be repatriated at some point, and personnel from their embassy have already visited the camps to verify their identities, the future of the Rohingya is more uncertain. They can’t be sent back to their country and the process to resettle them in third countries might take years.

Nevertheless, the Acehnese population seems to have welcomed those who have arrived to their coast with open arms. Many Acehnese visit them to the camps and their donations are making sure there are no shortages of food, and some are lobbying to shelter the Rohingya refugees indefinitely in Aceh.

“I really wish they will stay permanently in Aceh. I have lobbied the Governor of Aceh on this matter, and will raise it with the head of the Senate,” said Rafly, a famous Acehnese singer and Senator.

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