Aceh News

Four Australian surfers have been found alive after their boat went missing in bad weather off the east coast of Indonesia's Aceh province on Sunday, however at least one of three Indonesian crew members is believed to still be missing.The seven were aboard a 10-metre (30 foot) wooden vessel travelling from Nias Island to Aceh province's Banyak Islands when they were separated from a second vessel during bad weather around 6 p.m. on Sunday, according to Indonesia's national rescue agency.All four surfers had been found safe…

Crying with relief after a traumatic 40-day voyage to Indonesia in a leaky boat, Rohingya Muslim Fatimah bin Ismail held a mobile phone with shaky hands as she made a video call to relatives. The 19-year-old was among 174 surviving Rohingya in the overloaded wooden fishing boat when it washed up on the shores of Indonesia's Aceh province this week. Around 200 had been on board, fleeing poverty and persecution, when it set off across the Indian Ocean from Bangladesh on Nov. 21.

Indonesia will allow a boat packed with Rohingya which had become stranded off its coast to dock in the Southeast Asian country, its security ministry said on Wednesday, after calls from aid organizations to allow the vessel to seek refuge.Local officials in Aceh, a province on the western island of Sumatra said on Tuesday that they would provide the roughly 120 passengers on board with food, medicine and water, but would not allow them to seek refuge in Indonesia, despite international pleas to do so."Today…

Indonesia, acting on a request from Interpol, has seized a fishing boat carrying 600 illegal gillnets that can stretch up to 30 km (18 miles) after it evaded capture in several countries, the Fisheries Ministry said. The vessel, the STS-50, had targeted Antarctic toothfish, the ministry said, a cod species that plays an important role in the Southern Ocean ecosystem. Gillnetting, which uses walls of finely meshed nets, has been banned in Antarctic waters since 2006 and is described by Australia as posing a huge risk to “almost all marine life”. Officially stateless, the STS-50 evaded authorities by flying eight different flags at different times, including those of Sierra Leone, Togo, Cambodia, South Korea, Japan, Micronesia and Namibia, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

Asia’s most populous democracies and emerging powers, have firmed up a blueprint for enhancing maritime cooperation and resolved to jointly combat terror. India and Indonesia enjoy a good maritime partnership. India has backed Indonesia on the latter’s escalating dispute with China on territorial claims in South China Sea. This nexus is expected to irk China. “Indonesia is our most important partner as part of our ‘Act East’ policy,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said in a joint statement with Indonesian President Joko Widodo. India and Indonesia have affirmed their commitment to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos). "Both leaders committed to maintaining a maritime legal order based on the principles of international law…

Six ships from four navies arrived at Garden Island, Sydney in early November, creating a buzz on the harbour. The visits came ahead of the Royal New Zealand International Naval Review, which will take place in Auckland later this month. Indonesian Navy ship KRI Banda Aceh, a Makassar class landing platform dock was the first to arrive in Sydney. Chilean Navy tall ship Buque Escuela Esmeralda followed a few days later. The sail training ship, which is undertaking her 61st training cruise, was welcomed to Sydney with a 3 inch gun salute from the cannon positioned near the Royal Australian Navy Heritage Centre. She was escorted by a fleet of vessels including local tall ships Southern Swan, South Passage and James Craig and a fire tug.

A migrant boat pushed back to sea by Southeast Asian nations over the weekend has not been heard from for two days, raising concerns about what has happened to the 300 people on board, rights groups said on Monday. The boat was pushed backwards and forward between Malaysian and Thai waters last week in what the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has described as "maritime ping-pong". It is one of many vessels adrift in the Andaman Sea after human traffickers jumped ship when a crackdown by Thailand's junta made it difficult for the criminals that prey on Bangladeshis and stateless Rohingya from western Myanmar to land on Thai shores.

Indonesia will prevent boats carrying migrants from entering its maritime territory to avert a flood of others following behind causing "social issues", the military chief said on Friday. General Moeldoko said the military was carrying out patrols at its maritime borders and would provide humanitarian assistance if boats with migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh were in trouble in Southeast Asian waters. "We will try to prevent them from entering our territory otherwise it will create social issues," Moeldoko told reporters after meeting President Joko Widodo in the capital Jakarta. About 1,400 migrants have landed on Indonesia's western tip of Aceh this week, but thousands more remain stranded at sea with little food or water.

Malaysia said on Thursday it would push boats full of migrants back to sea, a policy that has drawn criticism from the U.N. refugee agency as thousands remained adrift in Southeast Asian waters. The UNHCR has said several thousand migrants have been abandoned at sea by smugglers following a Thai crackdown on human trafficking and has warned the situation could develop into a "massive humanitarian crisis". The crackdown has made traffickers wary of landing in Thailand, the preferred destination for the region's people smuggling networks, and led to a surge in migrants to Indonesia and Malaysia. "We are sending them the right signal, to send them to where they came from," Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said. "Their country is not at war.

Malaysia detained more than a thousand Bangladeshi and Rohingya refugees, including dozens of children, police said, a day after authorities rescued hundreds stranded off the coast of Indonesia's western tip. There has been a huge increase in refugees from impoverished Bangladesh and Myanmar drifting on boats to Malaysia and Indonesia in recent days after Thailand, usually the initial destination in the region's people smuggling network, announced a crackdown on the trafficking. Over 100 refugees from these countries were found wandering around in southern Thailand last week, apparently after they were abandoned by the smugglers. An estimated 25…

The Indonesian Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries has announced plans to develop five maritime technology parks to improve fisheries-based business in Indonesia, says The Jakarta Globe. The areas set for development — dubbed Technoparks for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, or TPKP — have been announced as the Natuna Islands in Riau Islands province; Simeulue district in Aceh; Sangihedi Islands district in North Sulawesi; Western Southeast Maluku district in Maluku, and Merauke district in Papua. Achmad Poernomo, head of research and development at the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry said that the government had aside a Rp 17 billion [$1.2 million] budget for TPKP development in those five areas.

Indonesia's Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Indroyono Soesilo inaugurated on Saturday the Cheng Ho sea route package aimed at attracting mainly Chinese tourists. The tourism route is named "The Cheng Ho Sea Route: Archipelagic Sailing" after the legendary Chinese admiral, a Muslim eunuch from the Ming Dynasty who led voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and East Africa between 1405 and 1433. The sea route is part of Admiral Cheng Ho’s important history, which brought the Chinese empire’s peace message. Similar trips will also be offered in Aceh, Palembang, Bangka Belitung, Jakarta, Cirebon, Semarang, Surabaya and Bali, which were visited by the admiral.

Wärtsilä, a leading provider of power solutions to marine and energy markets, has entered into co-operation with Crisis Management Initiative, an independent Finnish non-profit organisation, which works to resolve conflicts and to build sustainable peace. As lead partner, Wärtsilä supports the activities of CMI and creates partnership programmes with CMI in selected areas across the globe. CMI Chairman, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari explains that corporate support is essential for CMI to grow and become more effective.

The MT Penrider, owned by Malaysian interests, laden with 1,000 mt of fuel oil was en route from Singapore to Penang when it was attacked off Port Klang by armed pirates at about 13.30 hrs. on Sunday, 10 August 2003. The pirates armed with automatic weapons took control of the vessel. The Malaysian Rescue and Coordination Centre in Klang was alerted to the incident and a Marine Police patrol boat was sent to the scene. Negotiations took place between the vessel's owners and the pirates and eventually the vessel was released and allowed to proceed to Penang. However, the vessel's master, chief engineer and assistant engineer were taken hostage by the pirates and remain so pending payment of the ransom demanded by the pirates.

The Indonesian Supreme Court has ruled that a Japanese-charted oil tanker, held up by a local dispute, can leave the country but when was unclear, an official with the oil company involved said. The incident, involving a tanker chartered by trading house Mitsubishi Corp., was caused by a dispute between PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia, Indonesia's biggest oil operator, and a local contractor. "Today, we received the decision from the Supreme Court saying that the content of the ship is owned by the state... therefore the order should be revoked," Caltex spokesman Poedyo Oetomo said. "That means the ship can sail. But the process may take time," he said.

Reuters has reported that pirates have attacked three ships, including two U.N.-chartered vessels and a Japanese bulk carrier, in Indonesian waters around the Malacca Strait in recent days, maritime and police officials said on Wednesday. Two attacks occurred on ships carrying relief material to tsunami-stricken Aceh province at the weekend, while a Japanese bulk carrier was targeted, reports said. In at least one of the weekend attacks, raiders were armed with AK-47 rifles, grenades and pistols. The Japanese vessel, which was 26,989 tons in size, was attacked but its crew fended off the attackers with fire hoses, officials said. The attacks took to six the total number of piracy incidents in the Malacca Strait this year. Source: Reuters

The Netherlands has pledged $8.5 million in grants to develop a strategy for sea defense and flood protection and an early-warning system in the tsunami-ravaged areas of Aceh and Nias. A cooperation agreement for the two-year project was signed here on March 13 by Aceh and Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR) chairman Kuntoro Mangkusubroto and Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia Nikolaus van Dam. According to the Jakarta Post, the BRR has said the absence of a sustainable coastal protection strategy would endanger the progress of Aceh's reconstruction, especially the development of houses in coastal areas, which were not sufficiently protected from the sea. The program would include consultations, disaster modeling, surveys and investigations, trial structures and embankments.

According to the Hartford Courant, pirate attacks on ships fell last year to their lowest since 1999 as incidents declined off Indonesia, the world's most dangerous area for piracy. Attacks off Somalia and Iraq surged. Attacks dropped 16 percent, to 276. About 440 crewmembers were taken hostage last year, the highest since data has been compiled in 1992. Indonesia, whose oil-rich Aceh province has been struck by a separatist rebellion, accounted for almost a third of the attacks, with 79 incidents last year, down from 94. The government and a separatist rebel movement known as GAM signed a peace accord in August in their third attempt in four years to end a conflict that has killed more than 12,000 people in the southeastern Asian nation since 1976.

060121-N-1722M-003 San Diego (Jan. 21, 2006) – Commanding Officer, Medical Treatment Facility, aboard Military Sealift Command (MSC) hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19), Capt. David Llewellyn, speaks with the San Diego media about an upcoming exercise. Mercy is currently underway conducting routine operations. U.S. Hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) embarked 120 Navy medical personnel and 80 Military Sealift Command civil service mariners for a four-day disaster relief exercise Jan. 21. This is the first time Mercy has deployed since supporting tsunami relief operations as part of Operation Unified Assistance (OUA) in January 2005. “This time last year, we were en route to Banda Aceh,” Capt. David M. Llewellyn, commanding officer of the ship’s medical treatment facility.

The Military Sealift Command (MSC) hospital ship, USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) pulls into Pearl Harbor for a scheduled port visit. Mercy is making its first stop during a humanitarian assistance mission to the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Justin P. U.S Naval hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) arrived here May 2, making its first stop during a humanitarian assistance mission to the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia. This deployment to the region exemplifies the U.S. commitment to South and Southeast Asia and the Pacific island nations while building upon relationships established during Operation Unified Assistance in 2005. Meeting the arriving ship at the pier, Adm. Gary Roughead, commander, U.S.

A complex anti-piracy operation involving the resources of three nations ended on Wednesday as Indonesian naval forces stormed the Singaporean tanker Selayang to arrest a pirate gang that hijacked the vessel last week. "The high seas chase ended at 15:20 (local) on Wednesday when Indonesian naval and air units closed in on the ship," said a statement from the London-based International Maritime Bureau (IMB), which had been tracking the ship from its Kuala Lumpur control center. It had been chartered by oil-major Shell to carry a 3,500 tons gas oil cargo and was hijacked on June 19, shortly after it left Shell's Port Dickson refinery bound for Labuan, Malaysia.

Pirates and marauders will rule what are now Indonesia's territorial waters if the country disintegrates, increasing security risks to the whole region, Jakarta's minister for maritime exploration said. Sarwono Kusumaatmadja said if Indonesia fell apart, there would be no effective regime to police the waters - which include some of the world's busiest and most strategic sea lanes. His warning comes as Indonesia faces growing calls for independence from several provinces, in particular restive Aceh at the northern tip of the Sumatra Island, the gateway to the strategic Straits of Malacca. Analysts worry if Aceh breaks away, it will trigger the disintegration of the country. "If this country breaks up, these archipelagic seas would become internationalized.