COLOMBO, Dec 20, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Sri Lanka's navy said Friday it had rescued
102 Rohingya refugees from war-torn Myanmar adrift in a fishing trawler off
the Indian Ocean island nation, bringing them safely to port.

The group, including 25 children, were taken to Sri Lanka's eastern port of
Trincomalee, a navy spokesman said, adding that food and water had been
provided.

"Medical checks have to be done before they are allowed to disembark," the
spokesman said.

The mostly Muslim ethnic Rohingya are heavily persecuted in Myanmar and
thousands risk their lives each year on long sea journeys, the majority
heading southeast to Malaysia or Indonesia.

But fisherman spotted the drifting trawler off Sri Lanka's northern coast at
Mullivaikkal at dawn on Thursday.

While unusual, it is not the first boat to head to Sri Lanka -- about 1,750
kilometres (1,100 miles) across open seas southwest of Myanmar.

The Sri Lankan navy rescued more than 100 Rohingya refugees in distress on a
boat off their shores in December 2022.

The navy spokesman said Friday that language difficulties had made it hard to
understand where the refugees had been intending to reach, suggesting that
"recent cyclonic weather" may have pushed them off course.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh in
2017 during a crackdown by the military that is now the subject of a United
Nations genocide court case.

Myanmar's military seized power in a 2021 coup and a grinding war since then
has forced millions to flee.

Last month, the UN warned Myanmar's Rakhine state -- the historic homeland of
many Rohingya -- was heading towards famine, as brutal clashes squeeze
commerce and agricultural production.