A large mob of young people, including students, attacked a convention center housing hundreds of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh on Wednesday, demanding their deportation. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said in a statement today it remains deeply worried about the safety of refugees and calls on local law enforcement authorities for urgent action to ensure protection of all desperate individuals and humanitarian staff.
UNHCR said the mob in Banda Aceh broke a police cordon, stormed a building basement and forcibly put 137 refugees on two trucks, and moved them to another location in Banda Aceh. According to media reports, the young people wore jackets with the insignias of various Indonesian universities. Authorities did not stop the mob from removing the refugees.
According to the UN agency, the violent incident has left refugees - mainly children and women - shocked and traumatized. TV footage showed hundreds of students enter the building's large basement, where crowds of Rohingya women, men and children were seated on the floor and crying in fear.
The number of Rohingya taking risky boat trips across the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea to flee mounting hunger and hopelessness in the refugee camps of Bangladesh this year has topped last year’s numbers and could keep rising. UN figures suggest that over 1,500 Rohingya have landed in Indonesia since November.
A growing number of desperate Rohingya refugees continues to arrive in Indonesia in overcrowded vessels, as conditions in refugee camps in Bangladesh continue to worsen, where food rations have been significantly cut. Nearly 1 million ethnic Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim minority from Buddhist-majority Myanmar, live in the world’s largest refugee camps in eastern Bangladesh. Most arrived in 2017, fleeing what the UN calls an ethnic cleansing campaign of “genocidal intent” by the Myanmar military.
Most of those fleeing Myanmar or the camps in Bangladesh by boat try to make it across the Andaman to Malaysia or Indonesia, both Muslim-majority countries. Several hundred have died attempting the voyage on overcrowded vessels that often are old and rickety. Entire boats packed with refugees are believed to have been lost at sea.
According to UNHCR, Wednesday’s attack on refugees is not an isolated act but the result of a coordinated online campaign of misinformation, disinformation and hate speech against refugees and an attempt to malign Indonesia’s efforts to save desperate lives in distress at sea.
A 2016 presidential decree in Indonesia orders authorities to aid any boats in distress in the country’s waters and to let them land. Indonesia is not a party to the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, nor does it have a national refugee status determination system.
However, the principle of non-refoulement, a cornerstone of international law, prohibits states from returning refugees to countries or territories in which their lives or freedom may be threatened. As the principle is a part of customary international law, it is binding on all states, whether or not they are parties to the Refugee Convention or other conventions of international law.
In its statement, the UN agency reminds everyone that desperate refugee children, women and men seeking shelter in Indonesia are victims of persecution and conflict, and are survivors of deadly sea journeys.
August 25, 2023, marked the sixth anniversary since over 700,000 Rohingya women, men and children fled Myanmar to Bangladesh, following coordinated attacks by the Myanmar military. They joined hundreds of thousands of other Rohingya who had previously sought refuge in the country.
For decades, the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority, have faced institutionalized discrimination in Myanmar, such as exclusion from citizenship. Rohingya people have endured unspeakable hardship for years. An estimated 600,000 Rohingya people, still living in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, are unable to move freely and are subject to government persecution and violence.
The UN Refugee Agency is alerting the general public to be aware of the coordinated and well-choreographed online campaign on social media platforms, attacking Indonesian authorities, local communities, refugees and humanitarian workers alike, inciting hate and putting lives in danger. UNHCR appeals in particular to the public in Indonesia to cross-check information posted online, saying much of it false or twisted, with AI generated images and hate speech being sent from bot accounts.
The UN agency said it remains deeply worried about the safety of refugees in Indonesia and calls on local law enforcement authorities for urgent action to ensure protection of all desperate individuals and humanitarian staff.
Further information
Full text: UNHCR disturbed over mob attack and forced eviction of refugees in Aceh, Indonesia, UNHCR press release, published December 27, 2023
https://www.unhcr.org/asia/news/press-releases/unhcr-disturbed-over-mob-attack-and-forced-eviction-refugees-aceh-indonesia