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More than 140 Rohingya arrive in North Sumatra
The group, consisting mostly of women and children, arrived by boat in Deli Serdang area late on Saturday, according to the Antara report that cited a police officer.
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Women look at a boat which carried Rohingya refugees to the Laweueng beach in Pidie district, Aceh, on Dec. 10, 2023. More than 300 Rohingya refugees, mostly women and children, were stranded on the coast of western Indonesia on Dec. 10 after being adrift at sea for weeks, the latest in the biggest wave of arrivals since 2015. (AFP/Chaideer Mahyuddin)
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ore than 140 Rohingya have arrived in North Sumatra over the weekend, state news agency Antara reported on Monday, adding to a surge of arrivals of members of the Myanmar Muslim minority to Indonesia.
The group, consisting mostly of women and children, arrived by boat in Deli Serdang area late on Saturday, according to the Antara report that cited a police officer.
The arrivals came after the military said last week its navy vessel had driven away a boat carrying Rohingya in waters further north off Sumatra, as the persecuted ethnic minority faces growing hostility and rejection in Indonesia.
More than 1,500 Rohingya have landed in Indonesia since November, according to data from the United Nations' refugee agency (UNCHR).
For years Rohingya have been leaving Myanmar, where they are generally regarded as foreign interlopers from South Asia, denied citizenship and subjected to abuse.
They depart usually for Indonesia or neighbouring Malaysia from November to April, when the seas are calmer.
Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees, but has a history of taking in refugees if they arrive.
