A group of Rohingya say they were beaten by traffickers and drank their own urine to stay alive on a perilous four-month journey at sea until their dramatic rescue near the Indonesian coast.
They were rescued by fishermen in Indonesia on Wednesday and pulled to shore by locals the next day, thousands of kilometres south of Bangladesh. AFP could not independently verify the accounts of four members of the vulnerable Muslim minority group, who said they set off earlier this year near a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, next to their native Myanmar.Survivor Ziabur Rahman Bin Safirullah, 35, said the group got by on small rations of rice and nuts while relying heavily on rainwater to survive.
They set off from the Balukhali refugee camp in southern Bangladesh, but were originally from Myanmar's conflict-torn Rakhine State, according to survivors and an account given to the International Organization for Migration . Indonesia, the world's biggest Muslim majority nation, and neighbouring Malaysia are favoured destinations for Rohingya fleeing persecution and violence in mostly Buddhist Myanmar.About 1,400 Rohingya have been stranded at sea this year -- and at least 130 of those have died, according to IOM figures.Last week, a Malaysian coastguard official said dozens of Rohingya were believed to have died during a months-long journey to that country.
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