JAKARTA/COLOMBO: Southeast Asian lawmakers urged countries in the region on Tuesday to urgently rescue Rohingya refugees, including women and children, who have been adrift for weeks on a boat off the coasts of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and India.
The vessel sailed from Cox’s Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh on Nov. 25 reportedly carrying at least 160 refugees. The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, and activists have warned that some of those onboard have died from a lack of food and drinking water.
“We urgently call on ASEAN member states and other countries in the region to fulfill their humanitarian obligations and launch search and rescue operations for the boat if it enters their waters, and to allow for the proper disembarkation of the refugees,” Eva Sundari, a board member of the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, said in a statement.
“Neglecting the people on the boat is nothing short of an affront to humanity.”
Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, a Rohingya activist in Cox’s Bazar whose sister and niece are onboard the boat, told Arab News that at least two children and one woman have died.
“There’s no one to rescue them,” he said. “There are 160 people on the boat … they may die of dehydration and starvation.”
The number of Rohingya refugees attempting to cross the Andaman Sea from overcrowded camps in Bangladesh to another host country has been on the rise since last year, according to the UNHCR. Earlier this month, 154 refugees on a boat were rescued by a Vietnamese offshore company and handed over to the Myanmar navy.
On Sunday, 104 people onboard another vessel were rescued by the Sri Lanka navy off the coast of Kankesanthurai. They are being held at the Mirihana Immigration Detention Center, about 10 km from the capital Colombo, Kankesanthurai police officer M. Ratnayake told Arab News.
They appeared in court on Monday as Sri Lankan officials sought to determine the next step, though their case is now pending until Jan. 2.
Sri Lanka, which is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 protocol, does not have laws or mechanisms for the permanent resettlement of refugees.
“The government should work together with (the) UNHCR and find temporary accommodation for the refugees until they are fixed in permanent shelters either in Lanka or abroad,” Colombo-based lawyer Shiraz Noordeen, who is representing the Rohingya refugees, told Arab News.
“There is a pressing need for Sri Lanka to sign the treaty on refugees with (the) UNHCR to facilitate the movement of such cases.”
The plight of the Rohingya refugees stems from decades of persecution in their home country Myanmar. In 2017, over 730,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh following a crackdown by the Myanmar military that the UN said amounted to genocide.
Nearly 2,000 people, mostly Rohingya, have traveled by sea between January and November this year from Myanmar and Bangladesh, according to the UNHCR — a sixfold increase since 2021. At least 119 of them have died or were reported missing.
“Authorities from ASEAN member states must immediately launch search and rescue operations. For the sake of humanity. ASEAN countries … that intersect the territory of the Indian Ocean should at this time have short-term and long-term plans to rescue them,” Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid told Arab News.
“But the priority right now is to find clarity on their whereabouts and fate, as well as rescue them.”
