Indonesian students storm into Rohingya refugee camp, demand their deportation

JAKARTA: A large crowd of Indonesian students stormed into a convention camp housing Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on Wednesday demanding their deportation, CNN reported.

Hundreds of Rohingya refugees were residing in the convention camp in Banda Aceh city in Indonesia. CNN reported citing footage by Reuters, which showed the students, many wearing green jackets, running into the building’s large basement space, where crowds of Rohingya men, women and children were seated on the floor and crying in fear.

This was followed by the authorities taking out Rohingyas, some carrying their belongings in plastic sacks, and taking to trucks to transport them to alternative shelter, as the protesters looked on.

Hundreds of Indonesian students stormed a temporary shelter for #Rohingya refugees in Indonesia’s western Aceh province, demanding they be deported, in an escalation of the campaign against the refugees, a U.N. agency and local media reported. pic.twitter.com/iWVfNmfq4k

— Radio Free Asia (@RadioFreeAsia) December 28, 2023

Notably, the Rohingya refugees have experienced increasing hostility and rejection in Indonesia as locals grow frustrated at the number of boats arriving with the ethnic minority, who face persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, according to CNN.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has blamed the recent surge in arrivals on human trafficking, and has promised to work with international organizations to offer temporary shelter.

Arrivals tend to spike between November and April, when the seas are calmer, with Rohingya taking boats to neighboring Thailand and Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia.

Wariza Anis Munandar, a 23-year-old student in Banda Aceh speaking at an earlier protest rally in the city on Wednesday called for the deportation of the Rohingya while another student, 20-year-old Della Masrida, said “They came here uninvited, they feel like it is their country”, CNN reported.

A UNHCR Indonesia spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday’s incident. Earlier this month, UNCHR said the agency was “alarmed” by the reports of rejection in Indonesia.

Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees but has a history of taking in refugees if they arrive. Rohingyas have left Myanmar, where they are generally regarded as “foreign interlopers from South Asia”, are denied citizenship and subjected to abuse, according to CNN. (ANI)