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Roni Mahendra

Nearly 300 Rohingya migrants reach Indonesia ‘after seven months at sea’

Nearly 300 Rohingya migrants reached Indonesia early Monday claiming to have been at sea for seven months, United Nations officials said, in one of the biggest landings by the persecuted Myanmar minority in years. The migrants — including more than a dozen children — were spotted at sea on a wooden boat by locals who helped them land near Lhokseumawe city on Sumatra’s northern coast, officials said. “From their testimonies, they said that they were seven months adrift,” said UN refugee agency coordinator Oktina, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. “We have seen their condition is very weak at the moment,” she added. Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project — an NGO that focuses on the Rohingya crisis — said the migrants may have been held at sea while traffickers extorted money f...