Hundreds of
Rohingya have been found missing from a refugee camp in Indonesia, prompting
beliefs that they have been trafficked to neighbouring Malaysia, AFP reported
quoting officials and sources on Thursday.

Around 400
refugees arrived at the makeshift camp in Lhokseumawe in northern Indonesia between
June and September last year, with just 112 of them remaining now.

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The
refugees are believed to have enlisted traffickers to help them cross the Malacca
strait into Malaysia, with neither local authorities nor United Nations (UN)
officials able to account for their whereabouts.

“We don’t
know yet where they went,” Ridwan Jalil, the head of Rohingya taskforce in
Lhokseumawe, said. “But they’ll escape if they can find any hole to leave
because that is their goal.”

Nearly
750,000 refugees from Myanmar’s stateless Muslim minority were forced to flee
the country following a military crackdown in 2017, which according to UN
investigators amounted to genocide. They crossed the border and ended up in the sprawling
refugee camps in Bangladesh’s southeast district of Cox Bazar.

A large
number of them have since paid traffickers to get them out of Bangladesh, going
through months of illness, torture and near-starvation during sea journeys to
Indonesia and Malaysia, the latter of which is the primary destination for the
refugees.  

Over 100,000 of them live on the margins of
society there, registered as refugees but not allowed to work with the men forced
into illegal construction and other low-paid jobs.

Some
Rohingya men in Malaysia pay smugglers to bring over their families, or new
brides from arranged marriages. The refugees in Indonesia were repeatedly asked
to stay in the camp, the UN’s refugee agency said.

“But
(they) left despite our constant efforts to remind them about the danger and
risks they could face by leaving — including if they used the services of
smugglers,” said UNHCR spokeswoman Mitra Suryono.

Also Read | ‘What choice do we have?’: Rohingya women face odyssey of misery

“But
we have to remember that many of (them) have relatives in other countries such
as Malaysia. That may be one of the reasons why they continued their
journey,” she added.

Rights
groups blamed the Indonesian government, which drastically reduced security at
the settlement when the Rohingya were placed under the supervision of UNHCR
last month.

“The
main reason for the exodus is security at the camp,” said Iskandar
Dewantara, co-founder of the Geutanyoe Foundation, an Indonesia-based refugee
advocacy group. “It’s fine if (the government) hands over the refugees to
UNHCR, but it should continue supporting the agency in terms of providing
security,” he added.

While
Indonesia is not a signatory to an international convention on refugees, the
move was a breach of its obligations to protect them, said Usman Hamid,
director of Amnesty International’s Indonesia office.

“As
long as they’re in Indonesian territory, then it is Indonesia’s obligation to
give them protection,” Hamid added.