Migrants share harrowing tales of fights with axes and knives as refugees began ‘slaughtering’ each other
Exhausted survivors said between 100 and 200 people were killed in fighting that erupted on their boat.
Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants on board a foundering vessel off Indonesia fought with axes, knives and metal bars in vicious clashes that left at least 100 dead, survivors said as they recovered from their ordeal.
Both groups described bloody, nightmarish scenes after the overcrowded vessel was abandoned by its crew last week, with desperate migrants ”slaughtering” each other in fierce battles over dwindling supplies.
Exhausted survivors, many bearing bruises and cuts, said from camps in Aceh province they believed between 100 and 200 people were killed in the fighting that erupted on Thursday on the boat, which was carrying hundreds of migrants.
They are among nearly 3,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshis who have come ashore in the past week in Southeast Asia, after a Thai crackdown disrupted long-established human-trafficking routes.
While many were hacked to death on board, others jumped from the ship as they sought to escape the carnage, and those that survived were rescued by local fishermen and brought to shore. Both sides blamed the other for starting the fighting.
“Suddenly the Bangladeshis came out of the deck, and they attacked all of us who were on the top of the boat,” said Rohingya migrant Asina Begun, 22, said from Langsa, an Aceh town where most of the migrants were taken.