Nearly 300 Rohingya migrants land in Indonesia's Aceh

Nearly 300 members of Myanmar's ethnic Rohingya minority landed in Aceh province on Indonesia's Sumatra island early on Monday after months at sea, a Red Cross official said.

Locals immediately brought the migrants to beach huts in the town of Lhokseumawe as soon as they reached the shore around midnight, said Muhammad Waly, the head of the local Indonesian Red Cross. The group consisted of 181 women, 102 men and 14 children and started their voyage from Bangladesh with Malaysia as their destination, Waly said.

"According to information from some of them, they spent six months at sea," Waly told dpa. "They are weak and some of them are ill," he added.

In June, Acehnese fishermen rescued nearly 100 Rohingya migrants who had been drifting several kilometres of the coast of North Aceh.   

Thousands of Rohingya have become stranded in Aceh over the past five years after their boats drifted while en route to Malaysia and other countries. 

UN investigators have accused Myanmar's military of carrying out mass killings and other atrocities against the Muslim minority with "genocidal intent" during a 2017 campaign that forced more than 730,000 across the border into Bangladesh. (dpa)