Starving, thirsty Rohingya drank urine to survive perilous high-seas horror
- Indonesian fishermen rescued nearly 100 Rohingya refugees, including 79 women and children
- Survivors claimed that people smugglers paid to transport them had beaten some of group
The bedraggled survivors – about 100 in all, mostly women and children – described a high-seas horror story that saw them reduced to throwing the dead overboard as their rickety craft drifted thousands of kilometres towards Malaysia.
Two survivors claimed that people smugglers paid to transport them had beaten the Rohingya who were later moved to a new boat and abandoned at sea.
They were rescued by fishermen in Indonesia on Wednesday and pulled to shore by locals the next day, thousands of kilometres south of Bangladesh.
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In Indonesia, rescued Rohingya refugees recount tales of being stranded at sea
“We suffered so much on that boat,” 50-year-old Rashid Ahmad said at an immigration detention centre in Lhokseumawe city on Sumatra’s northern coast.
“They tortured us and cut us. One of us even died.