Dozens of refugees circled around an officer of the Jakarta Social Agency who was shouting out approximately 300 names listed on papers through a loudspeaker on Thursday afternoon on Jl. Kebon Sirih in Central Jakarta.

The refugees, who had escaped wars in their home countries of Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan, listened carefully, making sure that the male officer called their names before getting on buses that would take them to a temporary shelter in a former building of the West Jakarta military command (Kodim) in Kalideres.

The Jakarta administration has taken measures to provide shelter for the refugees after they slept on sidewalks in Kebon Sirih for the past two weeks. The decision was made after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Indonesia made a formal request to the Jakarta administration.

City secretary Saefullah said the relocation was undertaken for reasons of humanity and to ensure public order.

“They stayed on the sidewalks in front of the UNHCR office in Kebon Sirih, which is not only not proper but also disturbs public order,” he said on Thursday.

The empty building was chosen for the refugees because it was near the Jakarta Immigration Detention Center in Kalideres where they usually resided, he said. The refugees were staying in the immigration center before they began assembling on the street in Kebon Sirih as part of a protest to demand that the UNHCR speed up the processing of their asylum applications.

Based on an agreement with the UNHCR, the city administration is not only providing shelter, but also their other needs for the first week, including three meals a day. The money to pay for this is to be taken from the social agency emergency fund allocated by the 2019 city budget.

The assistance was based on the 2016 Presidential decree on the treatment of refugees from overseas that allowed regional administrations to hand out aid.

“There are several stipulations that regional administrations can help the UNHCR in the name of humanity,” Saefullah said.

Jakarta Council speaker Prasetyo Edi Marsudi said he supported the administration, explaining that the measure was deemed necessary.

“Seeking asylum through the UNHCR is their own problem, but no one may sleep on sidewalks, especially as this is a main area where government offices are situated,” he said.

As of Thursday afternoon the city administration had relocated about 300 people to the shelter using seven Transjakarta buses.

A refugee from Afghanistan, Hamid, who fled to Indonesia in 2013, said he had yet to learn about which temporary shelter he was heading to. The 23-year-old man expressed hope that he would at least have a place to sleep under a roof, but demanded the UNHCR to provide more permanent measures for him and the rest.

“Please move us out from here [Indonesia]. We cannot work, go to school; we cannot do things here,” he said.

A Somalian refugee, Abdul Rahman, said he had camped out on the sidewalks of Kebon Sirih because he was tired of waiting for updates from the UNHCR. He came to Indonesia with his wife, seeking to go to a third country such as the United States or Australia.

Jamila, a 30-year-old mother of one from Afghanistan, said that the situation was better in Kebon Sirih than at the old place in Kalideres. As the immigration center has limited space, many of the refugees also had to sleep on the sidewalks there. She also commended the nice gestures of Indonesians, recalling that she received diapers and food from passersby.

UNHCR country director Thomas Vargas previously said that the UNHCR faced more stumbling blocks to resettle them as some traditional partner countries had reduced the number of refugees they would take in. (eyc)

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