Huddled On An Indonesian Beach, Stranded Rohingya Plead For Mercy

Huddled on a beach after a sleepless night, a group of around 200 Rohingya refugees sit on the sand of a western Indonesian island, cordoned off by yellow tape meant to stop them running away.

Locals in Sabang, in Aceh Province, have refused to accept the members of the persecuted Myanmar minority after they landed overnight, and were trying to push them back out to sea on Wednesday.

But some of the Rohingya refused, leading to a stalemate on the beach where some people could be heard crying and others were passed out from exhaustion, using bags for pillows and shawls for blankets, surrounded by washed-up ocean debris.

"We have been suffering 15 days at the sea," refugee Abdul Rahman, 15, told AFP.

"We are very worried now. We don't want to go anywhere else, we only want to stay in this country."

This is the third time in a week that Acehnese locals have sought to push hundreds of Rohingya refugees back out to sea after they reached the shore.

Last week locals prevented a boat from docking, forcing some exhausted Rohingya to swim to land to plead with them to allow their fellow passengers to disembark.

Including the stranded arrivals in Sabang, more than 1,000 Rohingya have landed on Aceh's shores in the last week, according to local officials.

Next to screaming babies, some children on the beach Wednesday whacked the sand and built sandcastles, seemingly oblivious to the fractious situation unfolding around them, while others tried to cover their faces from the sun on the shadeless strip of ground.

The night before, after landing, the large group sat together in rows surrounded by locals and security officers, with only flashlights illuminating them on the beachfront, according to images and footage shared with AFP by the United Nations.

Instead of being taken to shelter, the group -- which includes 91 women and 56 children -- was kept on the sand overnight without bedding.

Rahman said the arrivals had come from different camps in Bangladesh, and many had been in Kutupalong, the world's biggest refugee camp.

After more than two weeks on the ocean, he said, their boat's engine was eventually damaged. The vessel could be seen bobbing out at sea.

"How can we go anywhere?" he asked.

"We don't want to go back."

More than a million Rohingya have fled Myanmar since the 1990s, most in the wake of a 2017 military crackdown that is now subject to a UN genocide investigation.

They now face rejection on the shores of Aceh, a province where locals themselves have memories of decades of bloody conflict and have long been sympathetic to the plight of their fellow Muslims.

A United Nations team was rushing to the island at the northern tip of Sumatra in hope of delaying frustrated locals and officials from putting the arrivals back in their boat.

"The situation in the field now is not good," said UN refugee agency protection associate Faisal Rahman, saying officials were negotiating to prevent their return to sea.

He said local officials and community members were trying to force the UN to relocate the refugees if they were not sent back out to sea.

"The rejection virus has been spread to all people," he added.

The agency is now pushing for the Indonesian government to put the Rohingya arrivals in a temporary shelter, away from the beach.

Some Acehnese say their patience has been tested, claiming the Rohingya consume scarce resources and occasionally come into conflict with locals.

Hundreds of the refugees died or went missing at sea last year because of the dangers of such journeys on unsuitable wooden boats, the UN says.

"We only come here in this peaceful country. That's why we come here," said Abdul Rahman.

"So why are people making us go back?"