Dozens of Rohingya feared dead or missing after boat capsized off Indonesia: UN

Dozens of Rohingya refugees are feared dead or missing after a boat survivors said held around 150 people capsized this week off the westernmost coast of Indonesia, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said Friday.

“The fear is for those out of the 151, that haven’t been so far rescued, is that those lives have been lost or they have gone missing,” UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch told AFP.

“Let’s hope that tomorrow, that if they are still alive somewhere, that they are rescued.”

Indonesian rescuers called off the search for any remaining Rohingya refugees missing at sea earlier in the day, despite reports from some of the survivors that dozens of people were swept away.

Survivors estimated there were “around 150 people on the boat”, West Aceh fishing community secretary-general Pawang Amiruddin told AFP by phone on Wednesday.

UNHCR said in a joint statement with the International Organization of Migration (IOM) on Friday they were “shocked and deeply concerned over the situation” after the boat capsized 16 nautical miles (30 kilometres) off the coast of West Aceh.

“If confirmed this would be the biggest loss of life so far this year,” the joint statement said.

On Thursday authorities staged a dramatic rescue of 69 Rohingya who had been adrift at sea for weeks before the boat capsized, with many found clinging to the hull of the overturned vessel.

From mid-November to late January, 1,752 refugees, mostly women and children, landed in the Indonesian provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra, according to the UNHCR.

The UN agency said it was the biggest influx into the Muslim-majority country since 2015.