Aceh, Indonesia
CNN
—
Hatemon Nesa cries as he hugs his 5-year-old daughter, Umme Salima, at a rescue shelter in Aceh, Indonesia. Their faces are thin and their eyes look grumpy. drift for weeks at sea On a boat with little food or water.
“My skin was rotting and my bones were showing,” said Nessa. “I thought I would die on that ship.”
Nesa also mourns for her 7-year-old daughter, Umme Habiba. She was forced to leave her in Bangladesh, she says. “My heart is burning for her daughter,” she said.
Nesa and Umme Salima are among about 200 Rohingya, members of the persecuted Muslim minority, embarking on the perilous voyage from Cox’s Bazar, a sprawling refugee camp in Bangladesh, in late November. rice field. .
However, shortly after they left, the engine died and the seven-day journey turned into a month-long ordeal at sea, exposed to the elements in an open-top wooden boat, surviving on rain and only three splashes of water. I was. food for the day.
Nessa said she saw starving men jumping off the ship in desperate search for food, but they did not return.When She witnessed a baby die after being fed salt water from the sea.
As the weeks went on, the passengers’ families and aid agencies appealed to governments in multiple countries for help, but their cries were ignored.
Then, on December 26, the boat was rescued by Indonesian fishermen and local authorities in Aceh, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Of the approximately 200 people who boarded the boat, only 174 survived, and about 26 were presumed dead on the boat, missing at sea, or dead.
Babar Barochi, the agency’s spokesperson for Asia, said after the lull during Covid, the number of people fleeing has returned to pre-Covid levels. , 400 of which died, making 2022 one of the most devastating years for Rohingya to escape Cox’s Bazar in a decade.
“These are literally death traps and once you get in… you lose your life,” he said.
Nesa and Salima’s journey began on November 25 in an overcrowded refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar. She said her children were out of school and had little hope for the future.
Nesa said she carried about two kilograms of rice for the trip, but shortly after the boat left the port, its engine stopped and it started drifting.
“I had no food and was starving, so I saw a fishing boat nearby and tried to approach it,” she said, crying as she remembered her fear. “We jumped into the water and swam close to the boat, but we couldn’t.”
When the boat shook aimlessly in the Bay of Bengal in December, UNHCR said it was found near India and Sri Lanka. “Never ignore” plea for intervention.
Indian and Sri Lankan navies did not immediately respond to requests for comment by CNN. A response has been received. Last month, the Sri Lankan Navy said in a statement that its crew had made “hard efforts” to rescue another ship carrying 104 Rohingya, including many women and children fleeing Bangladesh. .
On December 18, Nesa’s brother, Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, in Cox’s Bazar, shared with CNN an audio clip of the harrowing phone call he received from one of the refugees on Nesa’s boat.
“We are dying here,” the man said over a satellite phone, according to recordings. “We haven’t eaten in eight to ten days. We are starving.”
Nesa said the boat driver and another crew member jumped into the sea looking for food, but never returned. “I think they were eaten by fish in the sea,” she said.
Nesa said 12 other men grabbed a long rope attached to the boat and went into the water trying to eat something, but others on the boat tried to pull them back, causing the rope to snap. “They couldn’t get back into the boat.”
All countries are required by international law to rescue people stranded at sea, but according to UNHCR’s Baroch, rapid action is not always taken, especially when Rohingya refugees are involved. not.
“I think we all agree as human beings that we have a responsibility to want to save one life in distress, let alone hundreds of people dying,” Baloch said. “[Neighboring states]must act to save these desperate people. It must be an action under the joint coordination of all states in the region. ”
Nesa and Umme Salima He was one of 174 emaciated survivors who set foot on land for the first time in weeks in late December. Some immediately collapsed onto the sand of Aceh’s beach, too weak to stand.
They are one of the lucky people. Early December when the resident cut off contact with his family.
Survivors from Nesa’s ship are currently receiving medical care in Aceh, but it’s unclear what will happen to them in the coming weeks and months.
According to UNHCR, Indonesia is not a party to the UN Refugee Convention and lacks a domestic refugee protection structure.
For persons found to be refugees, UNHCR offers a range of solutions, including resettlement to a third country or voluntary repatriation, if the person can be “returned safely and in dignity”. Start looking for one.
This is for a group of passengers who have lived for years in overcrowded, unsanitary and unsafe refugee camps in Bangladesh, fleeing decades of systemic discrimination, widespread brutality and sexual violence in their native Myanmar. It marks the beginning of a new chapter.
“These stateless and persecuted Rohingya refugees have known little peace,” said UNHCR’s Baloch.
He added that the international community needs to do more for persecuted groups suffering on an unimaginable scale.
For Nessa, there remains hope that one day she will be reunited with her other daughter.
“I almost died (in Bangladesh),” she said. “Allah has given me a new life…my children should get a proper education. That’s all I wanted.”
