Banda Aceh. Nearly 600 migrants thought to be Rohingya refugees from Myanmar were rescued from two wooden boats stranded off the coast of Aceh province, authorities said on Sunday.

The overcrowded boats, which were carrying nearly 100 women and dozens of children among the refugees, were towed to shore by fishermen after running out of fuel.

“According to the information we have so far, the people on board are from Myanmar. They are Muslim, from the Rohingya community,” said Mohammed Arif Mutaqin, spokesman for the Aceh Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas).

The migrants left Thailand about seven days ago and some died during the journey, authorities said.

Of those rescued, around 50 were taken to the hospital.

“In general, they were suffering from starvation and many were very thin,” said North Aceh police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Achmadi.

An estimated 25,000 Rohingyas and Bangladeshis boarded people-smugglers’ boats in the first three months of this year, twice as many in the same period of 2014, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday.

An agency official estimated that around 300 people had died at sea in the first quarter of this year as a result of starvation, dehydration and abuse by boat crews.

Reuters

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Banda Aceh. North Aceh district has passed legislation requiring schools to teach boys and girls separately and hopes to follow that up with a ban prohibiting the two sexes from riding motorcycles together.

Aceh, the only province that abides by Islamic sharia law in the Muslim-dominated nation, has over the years passed a series of strict faith-based regulations that has put it at odds with the rest of the country.

North Aceh last week approved the legislation, which also requires the Koran be read every night, and submitted it to the provincial government for approval.

“What we do now will be just like what happens currently in traditional Islamic boarding schools,” said Fauzan Hamzah, a member of the district’s legislature. “I hope this policy won’t only be implemented in the North Aceh regency but in the entire province.”

Lawmakers would next begin discussing legislation banning men and women from riding motorcycles together, Hamzah said.

“I believe there won’t be any obstacles [to this proposed law] because the majority of people support it,” he said.

Lawmakers in 2013 banned women from sitting on motorcycles except side-saddle, but the regulation has rarely been enforced.

The province also passed an anti-homosexuality law in October that punishes anyone caught having gay sex with 100 lashes.

Indonesia agreed to allow Aceh to use Islamic sharia law as its legal code as part of a 2005 peace agreement that ended a three-decade-old separatist movement.

Reuters

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