Indonesia denies migrants asylum

Indonesia will deny political asylum to 193 migrants from Burma and Bangladesh who are being held at a navy base after being found stranded off the country’s western coast.c

Indonesia will deny political asylum to 193 migrants from Burma and Bangladesh who are being held at a navy base after being found stranded off the country’s western coast.

Most of the group identified themselves as Rohingya, members of a Muslim ethnic group that fled persecution in Burma. Tens of thousands of Rohingyas live in camps in Bangladesh, where they have been granted refugee status.

But Indonesia’s foreign minister Hassan Wirajuda said the migrants found drifting off Indonesia’s Aceh province on January 7 would be refused entry into the country, because they were economic migrants, not political asylum seekers.