Hundreds of Rohingya refugees reach Indonesia’s west on boat

BIREUEN, Indonesia: About 250 desperate Rohingya refugees reached western Indonesia on a decrepit, overcrowded wooden boat on Thursday, bringing the total number reported by local officials to have arrived this week to nearly 600.

The boat holding the members of the persecuted Myanmar minority, many barefoot and some pleading for help, sat just off the coast in the archipelago nation´s Aceh province.

Some made a dash for shore after residents refused to let them land, collapsing to the sand and begging for the vessel´s exhausted passengers to be allowed to disembark. The mostly Muslim Rohingya are heavily persecuted in Myanmar and thousands risk their lives each year on long and expensive sea journeys, often in flimsy boats, to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia.

Men, women, children and babies could be seen looking to shore as angry locals told them not to land the boat, which some on board said had sailed from Bangladesh. Young men on board held their arms out in exasperation as the open-topped boat listed to one side through overcrowding.