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Sri Lanka’s navy has rescued 104 Rohingya adrift off the Indian Ocean Island’s northern coast, an official said on Monday, as members of the Muslim minority continue to escape violence in Myanmar and hardship in Bangladesh refugee camps, reports Reuters.
Many Rohingya risk their lives every year by attempting to reach Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia on rickety vessels, and their numbers have surged following deteriorating conditions in the camps and last year’s military coup in Myanmar.
The boat was first detected by the Sri Lanka Navy when it was 3.5 nautical miles from shore and a search and rescue operation was launched to eventually tow the vessel to a northern harbour on Sunday night, a navy spokesperson, Captain Gayan Wickramasuriya, said.
“The people have been handed over to the police,” Wickramasuriya told Reuters. “The police will present them before a magistrate who will decide the next step.”
A navy statement said it had 104 Myanmar nationals found aboard a small trawler suspected to have originated from Myanmar and was heading to Indonesia when it ran into engine trouble in rough seas.
Wickramasuriya 39 women and 23 minors were among the rescued people, and an 80-year-old man, one mother and her two children were admitted to the hospital suffering from minor sickness.
In 2018, more than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to neighbouring Bangladesh following a military crackdown in Myanmar that witnesses said included mass killings and rape.
Rights groups and media have documented killings of civilians and the burning of villages.
Myanmar authorities have said they were battling an insurgency and deny carrying out systematic atrocities.
Earlier, Sri Lanka’s navy has arrested 32 people suspected of being Rohingya refugees and their Indian traffickers off the country’s northern coast.
Chaminda Walakuluge, a navy spokesman, said a coastguard patrol observed the boat entering Sri Lankan waters on Sunday. The 30 passengers from Myanmar included 16 children, among them a baby just 15 days old and a four-month-old child.
A UN report released in February said the army’s campaign targeting the Rohingya involved mass killings, gang rapes and the burning down of villages, likely amounting to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
In neighbouring Bangladesh, where more than 75,000 Rohingya have fled to escape the crackdown, people have recounted grisly accounts of horrendous army abuse, including soldiers allegedly executing an eight-month-old baby while his mother was gang-raped by five security officers.
“What kind of hatred could make a man stab a baby crying out for his mother’s milk,” Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the UN rights chief, said in a statement at the time.
“What kind of ‘clearance operation’ is this? What national security goals could possibly be served by this?”
