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Many members of the ethnic Rohingya Muslims, a persecuted
minority in Myanmar, have for years boarded rickety wooden boats
to escape to Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia
as well as Thailand.
Several hundred Rohingya arrived in Aceh earlier this year, and
massive numbers have died at sea from disease, hunger and
fatigue. Last year was one of the deadliest in a decade for such
refugees, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has said.
Miftah Cut Ade, chief of the local fishing community in Aceh,
told Reuters 196 Rohingya arrived on one large wooden boat in
Aceh's Pidie region, 128 of whom are children and women, adding
they were "weak and in need of nutrition."
A UNHCR spokesperson said its team was on the way to the area,
but gave no further details.
Nearly one million Rohingya Muslims fled a military-led
crackdown in Buddhist-majority Myanmar in 2017 and now live in
what U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi
described as "the biggest humanitarian refugee camp in the
world" in Bangladesh.
Residents gave food and water to the Rohingya, Miftah said,
adding they were taken to a temporary shelter nearby.
Photos shared by Miftah showed the Rohingya lying on the sand,
surrounded by local residents.
Effendi, a local police chief, said his team was assisting on
the ground, adding he had no information about where they had
travelled from.
(Reporting by Ananda Teresia and Stanley Widianto; Editing by
Raju Gopalakrishnan and Bernadette Baum)
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