Over 200 Rohingya arrive by boat in Indonesia over weekend, official says

The mainly Muslim minority are often escaping poor conditions in refugee camps on rickety boats to Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia

More than 200 Rohingya came ashore over the weekend in Indonesia's Aceh province, an official said on Monday, amid growing numbers of arrivals by sea of the stateless population in the Southeast Asian country.

The mainly Muslim Rohingya, who are originally from Myanmar and constitute the world's largest stateless population, often escape poor conditions in refugee camps on rickety boats to Thailand or Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia between October and April, when the seas are calmer.

More than 200 Rohingya arrived on Sunday evening in the West Peureulak region of East Aceh on Sumatra island, on the western side of Indonesia, said Miftach Tjut Adek, chief of Aceh's fishing community.

Faisal Rahman, an official at the United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, said the agency is coordinating with local authorities and its team is headed to West Peureulak on Monday.

Between October and November last year, more than 500 Rohingya arrived in Indonesia by boat.

Almost 1 million Rohingya live in camps in Bangladesh in what UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has called "the biggest humanitarian refugee camp in the world".

In Buddhist-majority Myanmar they are regarded as foreign interlopers from South Asia, and are denied citizenship and abused.

More than 2,000 Rohingya arrived in Indonesia in 2023, UNHCR data showed, more than the combined total of arrivals in the previous four years.