Sri Lanka Navy rescues over 100 Rohingya floating in Indian Ocean | Rohingya News
The 102 refugees, including 25 children, were taken to Sri Lanka’s eastern port of Trincomalee.
More than 100 Rohingya refugees from war-torn Myanmar were rescued by the Sri Lankan Navy on a fishing trawler off the island nation in the Indian Ocean and brought safely to port.
The 102 people, including 25 children, were taken to Sri Lanka’s eastern port of Trincomalee, a navy spokesman said on Friday.
“Medical examinations must be carried out before disembarkation,” the spokesman said.
The Muslim-majority Rohingya are severely persecuted in Myanmar and thousands risk their lives every year on long sea journeys, most of them heading southeast to Malaysia or Indonesia.
But at dawn on Thursday, fishermen spotted the trawler drifting off Sri Lanka’s northern coast near Mullivaikkal.
The Navy spokesman said Friday that language difficulties had made it difficult to understand where the refugees had gone, suggesting that “the recent cyclone” may have thrown them off course.
Although unusual, it is not the first boat to sail to Sri Lanka, which lies about 1,750 km (1,100 miles) across open sea southwest of Myanmar.
Six people died in October, almost 100 Rohingya landed by boat in Indonesia’s Aceh province as part of one of the latest arrivals from Myanmar.
The Sri Lanka Navy rescued more than 100 Rohingya refugees in distress on a boat off its coast in December 2022.
In 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled Myanmar for neighboring Bangladesh amid a military crackdown and are now the subject of a United Nations genocide trial.
Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup in 2021 and a bitter civil war has forced millions to flee since then.
The Rohingya have bore the brunt affected by the recent fighting because they were forcibly drafted into the army despite not being recognized as citizens.
