The 102 refugees, together with 25 youngsters, have been taken to Sri Lanka’s jap port of Trincomalee.
Greater than 100 Rohingya refugees from war-torn Myanmar have been rescued whereas adrift on a fishing trawler off the Indian Ocean island nation by Sri Lanka’s navy, bringing them safely to port.
The 102 folks, together with 25 youngsters, have been taken to Sri Lanka’s jap port of Trincomalee, a navy spokesman mentioned on Friday.
“Medical checks must be executed earlier than they’re allowed to disembark,” the spokesman mentioned.
The Muslim-majority ethnic Rohingya are closely persecuted in Myanmar and 1000’s danger their lives annually on lengthy sea journeys, the bulk heading southeast to Malaysia or Indonesia.
However fisherman noticed the drifting trawler off Sri Lanka’s northern coast at Mullivaikkal at daybreak on Thursday.
The navy spokesman mentioned on Friday that language difficulties had made it laborious to grasp the place the refugees had been headed, suggesting that “current cyclonic climate” could have pushed them off track.
Whereas uncommon, it isn’t the primary boat to move to Sri Lanka, which is about 1,750km (1,100 miles) throughout open seas southwest of Myanmar.
In October, six folks died as practically 100 Rohingya landed by boat in Indonesia’s Aceh province in one of many newest waves of arrivals from Myanmar.
The Sri Lankan navy rescued greater than 100 Rohingya refugees in misery on a ship off their shores in December 2022.
In 2017, lots of of 1000’s of Rohingya fled Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh throughout a crackdown by the navy that’s now the topic of a United Nations genocide court docket case.
Myanmar’s navy seized energy in a 2021 coup and a grinding civil conflict since then has compelled thousands and thousands to flee.
The Rohingya have borne the brunt of the newest combating as a result of they’ve been forcibly drafted into the military regardless of not being recognised as residents.
