A United Nations refugee advocate on Friday joined human rights defenders in imploring South and Southeast Asian nations to rescue nearly 200 Rohingya refugees “on the verge of perishing” after drifting on the Andaman Sea for weeks — an ordeal that’s already reportedly claimed around 20 lives aboard the vessel.
The refugees — who are fleeing ethnic cleansing and other severe state repression in their native Myanmar — have been packed aboard the unseaworthy boat for as long as a month without adequate food or water, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement.
“It is devastating to learn that many people have already lost their lives, including children,” Indrika Ratwatte, UNHCR’s Asia and Pacific director, said on Friday, lamenting that the refugees’ plight has been “continuously ignored” by countries in the region.
“This shocking ordeal and tragedy must not continue,” Ratwatte continued. “These are human beings—men, women, and children. We need to see the states in the region help save lives and not let people die.”
Using his phone, the captain of the stranded boat told Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, whose sister and 5-year-old niece are on the vessel, that “we’re dying here.”
Khan told The Washington Post on Friday that he has lost contact with his relatives aboard the vessel and that he is “very concerned” for their well-being.
“I ask the international community to not let them die,” Khan added. “Rohingya are human beings. Our lives matter.”
According to UNHCR:
Since the first reports of the boat being sighted in Thai waters, UNHCR has received unverified information of the vessel being spotted near Indonesia and then subsequently off the coast of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India.
Its current location is reportedly once more back eastwards, in the Andaman sea north of Aceh.
UNHCR has repeatedly asked all countries in the region to make saving lives a priority and requested the Indian marine rescue center earlier this week to allow for disembarkations.
While the Sri Lankan navy and local fishers acted rapidly to rescue over 100 Rohingya from a boat in distress in the Indian Ocean last weekend, no such assistance has been rendered to the vessel drifting in the Andaman Sea.
“International humanitarian law requires the rescue of people at sea when they are in distress, and their delivery to a place of safety,” Amnesty International stressed in a tweet Thursday. “Further delays to alleviate this suffering or any attempts to send Rohingya back to Myanmar where they face apartheid are unconscionable.”
Two weeks ago, a Vietnamese commercial ship en route to Myanmar rescued 154 Rohingya refugees from a sinking boat before turning them over to Burmese authorities, who reportedly arrested the migrants.
On Thursday, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Tom Andrews said that nations in the region “should prevent any loss of life and urgently rescue and provide immediate relocation” to the stranded Rohingya.
“Too many Rohingya lives have already been lost in maritime crossings,” asserted Andrews, a former Democratic U.S. congressman from Maine. “Increasing numbers of Rohingya have been using dangerous sea and land routes in recent weeks, which highlights the sense of desperation and hopelessness experienced by Rohingya in Myanmar and in the region.”
UNHCR has reported a 600% increase of mostly Rohingya people endeavoring perilous sea journeys from Myanmar and Bangladesh in 2022. The agency says at least 119 people have died or gone missing this year.
“While many in the world are preparing to enjoy a holiday season and ring in a new year, boats bearing desperate Rohingya men, women, and young children, are setting off on perilous journeys in unseaworthy vessels,” Andrews said.
“The international community must step forward,” he added, “and assist regional actors to provide durable solutions for the Rohingya.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 143 new monthly donors before midnight tonight.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy