Migrant boat abandoned by captain off Indonesia, IOM says
Jakarta (dpa) - The captain of a boat carrying refugees now stranded in Indonesia's Aceh province abandoned the vessel and jumped into a speedboat, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said.
Nearly 600 emigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority were rescued off Sunday after their boat was found drifting at sea, the IOM said.
"The captain jumped into a speedboat tied to the ship and fled," said IOM Indonesia chief Mark Getchell, citing accounts from two of the refugees.
"Luckily, the passengers were able to steer the ship toward the beach," he said. "People-smuggling is a ruthless business and these people are means for smugglers to make money," Getchell said.
"They are not even considered human beings." He said about 350 of the migrants now sheltered in Aceh were Bangladeshis, while the rest were Rohingyas from Myanmar.
All the Bangladeshis are male adults while the Rohingyas include children and women, he said.
One Bangladeshi told the organisation that he paid smugglers 7,000 Malaysian ringgit (about 2,000 dollars) for the journey.
"There are 582 people and maybe there are 852 different reasons why they wanted to go to Malaysia," Getchell said. The IOM sent seven people including doctors and a Rohingya interpreter to North Aceh, he said.
Many Rohingya Muslims, a stateless minority in predominately Buddhist Myanmar, travel to Malaysia and Indonesia via Thailand by boats and cars run by smugglers, who often then hold them in captivity until ransom is paid by their family back home.
The Rohingyas have suffered decades of state-sanctioned discrimination and ethnic violence.
Another boat carrying hundreds of emigrants was towed out of Indonesian waters early on Monday, Indonesian navy spokesman Manahan Simorangkir said.
The boat drifted into Indonesian territory near the Malacca Straits, he said. "We towed the boat out of Indonesian waters after giving them food and drinks," he said.
He said the passengers, thought to be ethnic Rohingyas, did not appear to be in danger, and Indonesia was not their final destination.
