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Nearly 200 starving Rohingya reach Aceh after a month at sea
But after more than a month adrift on the Andaman Sea without much food, medicine or a working engine, nearly 200 Rohingya reached Aceh province after their overcrowded, rickety wooden boat finally reached shore on Monday.
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Rohingya refugees eat food in a temporary shelter following their arrival by boat in Laweueng, Aceh province on December 27, 2022. Rohingya refugees received emergency medical treatment after a boat carrying nearly 200 people came ashore on December 27, authorities said, in the fourth such landing in the country in recent months.
(AFP/Chaideer Mahyudin)
Some died of sickness. Others of dehydration.
But after more than a month adrift on the Andaman Sea without much food, medicine or a working engine, nearly 200 Rohingya reached Aceh province after their overcrowded, rickety wooden boat finally reached shore on Monday.
Among the emaciated refugees who survived the harrowing voyage, some were so malnourished they could barely walk and many had to be rehydrated via IV drips.
Gaunt young children, as well as men and women, queued for food, baths and haircuts after spending the night on the floor of a local mosque.
"Some people died in the boat. Around 26 people. We threw them out to the sea," said Rasyit, an exhausted-looking refugee.
Every year when the monsoon season abates, thousands of Rohingya flee violence in Myanmar and squalid refugee camps in Bangladesh on perilous sea voyages run by human traffickers who promise sanctuary abroad.
Malaysia and Indonesia are favoured destinations for the persecuted Muslim minority, but they are often caught up in what the United Nations has called "human ping-pong" as governments turn them away.
