Rohingya Refugees Are Stranded at Sea for Days as Residents Reject Them

A boat carrying about 140 Rohingya refugees has been stranded miles off the coast of Indonesia for over a week, banned from settling there as Indonesian communities increasingly shun Rohingya refugees arriving by sea.

Near the boat, residents of a town in Aceh Province had been working with the United Nations’ refugee agency to provide food and water to the stranded group, said Muhammad Jabal, the chairman of the fisheries association in the South Aceh region.

On Wednesday, members of the town of Labuhan Haji agreed with officials to allow the refugees to come ashore for no more than a week starting Thursday, said Zumardi Chaidir, the chief of South Aceh’s search and rescue team. Indonesian immigration officials will decide where the refugees, predominantly women and children, go afterward, he said.

But the residents have been unwilling to host the group in their town because of unrest that Mr. Jabal said was happening in nearby towns that had welcomed other refugees.

“They’ve caused disturbances: for example, littering, theft and various security and safety issues,” Mr. Jabal said in a phone interview. “There has been resistance from the community against them being placed in our area.”

The impasse followed a recent surge in the number of Rohingya refugees arriving by boat in Indonesia, which has hosted thousands of them before. Last year, a wave of rejections began, prompted in part by misinformation about the Rohingya on social media, said Murizal Hamzah, an Aceh resident and writer of two books about Rohingya.