Ethnic Rohingya women and children whose boats were washed ashore on Sumatra Island board a military truck to be taken to a temporary shelter in Seunuddon, Aceh province, Indonesia, Sunday. Pic: AP.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A migration official says two boats carrying around 500 members of Burma's long-persecuted Rohingya Muslim community have washed to shore in western Indonesia.
Steve Hamilton, deputy chief of mission at the International Organization for Migration in Jakarta, said teams were racing Sunday to Mantang Puntong, in Aceh province.
He said the men, women and children arrived in the two boats, one carrying around 430 people and the other 70.
He said some appeared to be in need of medical attention.
Rohingya Muslims have for decades suffered from state-sanctioned discrimination in Burma.
Attacks on the religious minority by Buddhist mobs in the last three years have sparked one of the biggest exoduses of boat people since the Vietnam War, sending 100,000 men, women and children fleeing.
RELATED: Rohingya deaths: A string of mass graves stretches from Burma to Thailand
http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/500-rohingya-muslims-from-burma-wash-to-shore-in-western-indonesia/
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