Six people died as a boat carrying Rohingya fleeing Myanmar arrived in Indonesia Rohingya news

Ninety-six Rohingya refugees, including seven children, are stranded on the island of Sumatra after jumping overboard.

Six people have died as around 100 Rohingya arrive by boat in the Indonesian province of Aceh in the latest wave of immigration from Myanmar in recent days.

Miftach Tjut Adek, head of a local fishing community, told Reuters on Thursday that 96 people, including seven children, were on a beach east of Aceh on the island of Sumatra.

“There is no solution yet. They are still at sea,” said Mifach.

Two bodies were found on the beach and four were found floating in the sea, said Saiful Anwar, a village head in East Aceh.

“According to the information of the residents, these people were trapped around 04:00 [21:00 GMT],” Saiful told AFP.

Eight sick people have been taken for treatment, he added.

The acting head of East Aceh district, Amrullah M Ridha, told reporters that the refugees will be kept in tents on the beach until the authorities find shelter for them.

About 300 Rohingya came ashore last week in the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra. The United Nations UNHCR has urged the Indonesian government to ensure their safety.

An estimated 2,500 Rohingya arrived by boat in Aceh from January 2023 to March 2024, many of whom had arrived in Indonesia eight years ago, according to the UN agency.

A large Muslim group faces persecution in Myanmar, and hundreds of thousands have fled military protests, seeking refuge in refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh.

Thousands have made the perilous journey to Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia on dinghies, taking advantage of the cooler seas between October and April.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar views the Rohingya as foreign agents from South Asia, denies them citizenship and persecutes them.

Myanmar was under military rule for fifty years until the 2015 elections in which Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory. The military led a coup against his government on February 1, 2021, which sparked mass protests that turned into armed unrest after the generals responded with force.

The Rohingya have borne the brunt of the recent wars because they have been forcibly conscripted into the army even though they are not recognized as citizens.

Men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 can be drafted into the military for two years at a time, and this period can be extended to five years when a national emergency is declared.

Myanmar's military has repeatedly attacked the Rohingya in Rakhine state since the 1970s.

In 2017, military attacks forced more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees to flee across the border into Bangladesh. During the attacks, refugees often report rape, torture, burning and killing by Myanmar security forces.

The 2017 crackdown has been under investigation by the International Criminal Court in The Hague since 2019.