Boat with 120 Rohingya refugees disembarks in Indonesia port

By RAHMAT MIRZA
Associated Press

LHOKSEUMAWE, Indonesia (AP) — A group of 120 Rohingya Muslims has disembarked from a boat that drifted for days off Indonesia’s northernmost province of Aceh and was towed by a navy ship into port. The boat was reportedly leaking and had a damaged engine. Efforts to rescue its passengers, who are overwhelmingly women and children, began immediately after Indonesia’s government said Wednesday it would allow them to disembark because the conditions on the boat were so severe. The boat was first sighted by local fishermen Sunday off the coast of Bireuen. More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from Buddhist-majority Myanmar since 2017, when the Myanmar military launched a clearance operation in response to attacks by a rebel group.