Nearly 200 Rohingya refugees rescued from sinking ship

• 185 people, many of them women and children, were saved in Aceh, Indonesia.
• The boat’s motor failed, leaving them stranded in the Andaman Sea for weeks.
• Rohingya escaped Myanmar’s army’s murder and arson campaign.

Just in the nick of time, the boat that was carrying more than two hundred Rohingya refugees was safely saved.

After the motor of their flimsy boat failed, leaving them stranded in the Andaman Sea for weeks, they struggled with starvation and dehydration.

Some others became so hopeless that they drank seawater. Some begged for rain in order to temporarily slake their thirst.

Some are said to have died of disease from starvation and lack of medication. Numerous pleas from relief organizations to save the group went ignored, leaving the fate of nearly 200 Rohingya refugees in the hands of nature.

Then, on Monday, 185 people, many of them women and children, were saved in Aceh, Indonesia, according to Babar Baloch, a representative for the UNHCR in Asia (UNHCR).

“Desperate men, women and children. Many dehydrated, needing urgent medical attention. A sigh of relief,” Baloch wrote on Twitter.

The group left Bangladesh last month for what many consider to be one of the largest refugee camps in the world, where about 1 million members of the stateless Muslim minority known as the Rohingya reside after fleeing a brutal campaign of murder and arson by the Myanmar military. The rescue is a sign of hope for the group.

Video sent to Media by the relatives of passengers shows hundreds of people passing out on a beach in the Southeast Asian nation due to weariness.

Many people may be seen sobbing in relief while clutching to one another. Young toddlers and ladies wearing muddy and water-soaked clothing were among them.

They’ve been without food and drink for weeks, and it shows on their stoic features, which are pale and thin.

Although the relatives of the passengers and rights organizations have applauded the boat’s rescue, its terrible journey is only one more illustration of the Rohingya’s increasing suffering, one of the world’s most persecuted minority groups.

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