Crowded under tarpaulin tents strewn with rubbish and boxes of water, the Burmese and Bangladeshi migrants speak of horrors at sea: of murders, of killing each other over scarce supplies of food and water, of corpses thrown overboard.
“One family was beaten to death with wooden planks from the boat, a father, a mother and their son,” says Mohammad Amin (35). “And then they threw the bodies into the ocean.”
Amin, an ethnic Rohingya Muslim, first boarded a boat from Burma three months ago. Now he is among 677 migrants who are being housed in a makeshift camp by the harbour in Langsa, Indonesia, after spending months in the Andaman Sea.
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Burma faces blame over influx of boat people. Getting to the camp was a struggle of epic proportions. As governments around the region have refused the migrants entry, and their navies have pushed them back, it was eventually down to Acehnese fishermen to rescue the boat on Friday, towing it to shore in Langsa.
But at least now they are on dry land. Between 6,000 and 8,000 more are believed to still be stuck off the coasts of Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, with limited water and food, in a situation the United Nations has warned could fast become a “massive humanitarian crisis” because no government in the region is willing to take them in.
Mohammad Rafique (21), says that when the boat he was on first floated into Indonesian waters last week, the navy gave them provisions of food and water. “After that they asked us, ‘Where you go now?’” he explains, “We said, ‘We are going to Malaysia.’ The Indonesian navy said, ‘Go to Malaysia,’ and they take us to the Malaysian border.” In Malaysia they were met with the same response.
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Out back in the hospital wing in Langsa, a row of men lie on stretchers with their emaciated limbs hooked up to intravenous drips. The back of one shirtless man is marked with deep red lashes.
“They hit us, with hammers, by knife, cutting,” says Rafique, recalling onboard violence between the different groups of migrants. He presents his only possession — a Rohingya identity card from the United Nations high commission for refugees in Bangladesh.
Many of those on the ships are from northern Burma’s persecuted Rohingya minority, who are denied citizenship and voting rights, even though many have lived in the country for generations.
In the majority Buddhist nation, the Rohingya have continued to flee sectarian violence and poor conditions in refugee camps.
Others in the camp from Bangladesh are also quick to identify themselves as ethnic Rohingya Muslims, some saying they were travelling to Malaysia for work, to get married or to join their family members.
No one can say exactly how many people passed away on board. Rafique, who says he spent his whole life in a refugee camp in Bangladesh until starting on the sea voyage, claims that up to 200 people died during the journey.
More than 1,000 people have arrived on Aceh’s shores on dilapidated vessels over the past week.
— © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2015