Indonesian authorities said they would push a boat containing 120 Rohingya Muslims back to international waters despite fears that it would sink off the country's northernmost province of Aceh.
The boat was leaking, had a damaged engine, and was at risk of capsizing in harsh weather, the UN refugee agency said.
UNHCR is deeply concerned about the safety and lives of those on board, it said in a statement on Tuesday. We strongly urge the Indonesian government to allow safe disembarkation immediately in order to prevent needless loss of life. Badruddin Yunus, leader of the local tribal fishing community, said the boat was first sighted by local fishers in waters about 60 miles 96 kilometers off the coast of Bireuen, a district in Aceh province.
He said fishers were unable to tow the broken-down wooden boat, but they had provided food, water and clothes to the hungry passengers, including 60 women, 51 children and nine men.
Their condition looks weak but fine, said Yunus, adding that the refugees said they wanted to go to Malaysia and had been at sea for 28 days before their engine broke.
Local officials, supported by the police and navy, provided food, medicine, a new boat engine and a technician to help repair the Rohingya boat, and they will push it back to international waters once it is fixed, said Bireuen district chief Muzakkar Gani, who said some of the refugees might have Covid-19.
Gani said local officials were still waiting for directives from the central government in Jakarta but in the meantime planned to repair the boat so refugees could reach Malaysia.
Winardy, Aceh police spokesperson, said on Wednesday that officials planned to push the boat out of Indonesian waters.
Winardy, who is known as Winardy, said they will repair their boat, give them fuel and only monitor its movement to Malaysia.
A refugee taskforce unit at Indonesia's coordinating ministry for political, law and security affairs could not be reached for comment.
Since August 2017 when the Myanmar military launched a clearance operation in response to attacks by a rebel group, more than 700,000 Rohingya have fled from Buddhist-majority Myanmar to camps in Bangladesh. Myanmar security forces have been accused of mass rapes, killings and burning of thousands of homes.
Groups of Rohingya have tried to leave the crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh and travel by sea in hazardous voyages to other Muslim-majority countries in the region.
Muslim-dominated Malaysia has been a common destination for boats and traffickers, and they promised the refugees a better life there. But many Rohingya refugees who land in Malaysia face detention.
Although Indonesia is not a signatory to the UN 1951 Refugee Convention, the UNHCR said that a 2016 presidential regulation provides a national legal framework governing the treatment of refugees on boats in distress near Indonesia and to help them disembark.
These provisions have been in place for years, most recently in June when 81 Rohingya refugees were rescued off the coast of East Aceh.