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‘I thought I would die on that boat’: Mother recalls the horror of month at sea | CNN

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‘I thought I would die on that boat’: Mother recalls the horror of month at sea | CNN


Aceh, Indonesia
CNN
 — 

Hatemon Nesa weeps as she clings to her 5-year-old daughter, Umme Salima, at a rescue shelter in Indonesia’s Aceh province. Their faces seem gaunt, their eyes sullen, after drifting for weeks at sea on a ship with little meals or water.

“My pores and skin was rotting off and my bones have been seen,” Nesa mentioned. “I assumed I’d die on that boat.”

Nesa additionally cries for her 7-year-old daughter, Umme Habiba, who she says she was compelled to depart behind in Bangladesh – she couldn’t afford any greater than the $1,000 the traffickers demanded to move her and her youngest youngster to Malaysia. “My coronary heart is burning for my daughter,” she mentioned.

Nesa and Umme Salima have been amongst round 200 Rohingya, members of a persecuted Muslim minority, who launched into the damaging voyage in late November from Cox’s Bazar, a sprawling refugee camp in Bangladesh crowded with round 1,000,000 individuals who fled alleged genocide by the Myanmar navy.

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However quickly after they left, the engine minimize out, turning what was imagined to be a 7-day journey right into a month-long ordeal at sea, uncovered to the weather within the open-topped picket boat, surviving solely on rainwater and simply three days’ value of meals.

Nesa mentioned she noticed ravenous males soar overboard in a determined seek for meals, however they by no means returned. And she witnessed a child die after being fed salt water from the ocean.

Because the weeks wore on, the passengers’ households and support businesses pleaded with governments in a number of international locations to assist them – however their cries have been ignored.

Then on December 26, the boat was rescued by Indonesian fishermen and native authorities in Aceh, based on the United Nations refugee company (UNHCR). Of the 200 or so individuals who boarded the boat, solely 174 survived – round 26 died on the boat, or are lacking at sea, presumed lifeless.

Babar Baloch, an Asia spokesperson for the company, mentioned after a lull throughout Covid, the numbers of individuals fleeing are again to pre-Covid ranges. Some 2,500 boarded unseaworthy boats final 12 months for the journey, and as many as 400 of them died, making 2022 one of many deadliest years in a decade for Rohingya escaping Cox’s Bazar.

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“These are actually demise traps that after you get in … you find yourself shedding your life,” he mentioned.

Nesa and Salima’s journey started on November 25 from the overcrowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, the place she mentioned her youngsters couldn’t go to highschool, leaving her with little hope for his or her future.

Nesa mentioned she had carried round two kilograms of rice for the journey, however shortly after the boat left the port, its engine died they usually began drifting.

“Ravenous with no meals, we noticed a fishing boat close by and tried to go shut,” she mentioned, crying as she recalled the horror. “We jumped within the water to swim near that boat however in the long run, we couldn’t.”

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The rickety wooden boat that carried Hatemon Nesa and her daughter, Umme Salima pictured in  Aceh province, Indonesia.

Throughout December, because the boat bobbed aimlessly within the Bay of Bengal, the UNHCR mentioned it was noticed close to India and Sri Lanka. However the company mentioned these international locations “constantly ignored” its pleas for intervention.

CNN has contacted the Indian and Sri Lankan Navies for remark however has not obtained a response. Final month, the Sri Lankan Navy mentioned in a press release that its crews had made a “strenuous effort” to rescue one other boat carrying 104 Rohingya, together with many ladies and youngsters, who had fled Bangladesh.

On December 18, Nesa’s brother, Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, who’s in Cox’s Bazar, shared with CNN an audio clip of a harrowing cellphone name he obtained from one of many refugees aboard Nesa’s boat.

“We’re dying right here,” the person mentioned through satellite tv for pc cellphone, based on the recording. “We haven’t eaten something for eight to 10 days. We’re ravenous.”

Hatemon Nesa and her 5-year-old daughter Umme Salima at a shelter in Aceh province in Indonesia.

Nesa mentioned the boat’s driver and one other crew member jumped into the ocean to search out meals, however they by no means returned. “I feel they received eaten by fish within the sea,” she mentioned.

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Twelve different males entered the water, whereas holding onto an extended rope connected to the boat to attempt to catch one thing to eat, however as others on the boat tried to drag them again in, the rope snapped, Nesa mentioned. “They may not return to the boat.”

Whereas all international locations are sure by worldwide regulation to rescue individuals in misery at sea, swift motion just isn’t at all times forthcoming – notably the place Rohingya refugees are involved, based on Baloch, from the UNHCR.

“I feel everybody will agree as human beings that we have now the duty you wish to save one life in misery, not to mention tons of of individuals dying,” Baloch mentioned. “(Close by states) must act to save lots of these determined individuals. It must be an motion which is in coordination completed collectively by all of the states within the area.”

Nesa and Umme Salima have been among the many 174 emaciated survivors proven on video setting foot on land for the primary time in weeks in late December, some instantly collapsing onto the sand of an Aceh seashore, too weak to face.

They’re among the many extra lucky ones – the UNHCR believes one other 180 are presumed lifeless, misplaced at sea on one other boat since early December, when the occupants stopped speaking with their households.

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The survivors from Nesa’s boat are actually receiving medical care in Aceh, nevertheless it stays unclear what may occur to them within the coming weeks and months.

Rohingya refugees rest after being transferred to a temporary shelter following their arrival by a boat in Laweung, Aceh province on December 27, 2022.

Indonesia just isn’t social gathering to the UN Refugee Conference and lacks a nationwide refugee safety construction, based on the UNHCR.

For these discovered to be refugees, UNHCR will start to search for considered one of a spread of what options, together with resettlement to a 3rd nation or voluntary repatriation, if an individual is ready to “return in security and dignity.”

This marks the beginning of a brand new chapter for the group of passengers, who’ve lived for years in overcrowded, unhygienic and unsafe refugee camps in Bangladesh, after fleeing many years of systematic discrimination, widespread brutality and sexual violence of their dwelling nation of Myanmar.

“Stateless, persecuted, these Rohingya refugees have identified little peace,” mentioned UNHCR’s Baloch.

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Rather more must be completed by the worldwide group for the persecuted group, that suffer on a scale most can not think about, he added.

For Nesa, the hope stays that she may be reunited together with her different daughter some day.

“I used to be about to die (in Bangladesh),” she mentioned. “Allah gave me a brand new life … My youngsters ought to get a correct schooling. That’s all that I needed.”

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Live news: Trump gives US ambassador to Israel post to ex-governor Mike Huckabee

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Events to look out for on Tuesday include speeches from the Federal Reserve governor, Home Depot earnings and Spotify results:

Fedspeak: Less than a week on from the central bank’s second rate cut of the year, Federal Reserve governor Chris Waller will deliver the keynote at the Clearing House Annual Conference in New York. Separately, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond president Tom Barkin is scheduled to speak at a summit in Baltimore. At Carnegie Mellon University, Philadelphia Fed president Patrick Harker will deliver a lecture on “Fintech, AI & the Changing Financial Landscape”.

Home Depot: Investors will be eager to find out whether the Federal Reserve’s back-to-back rate cuts, which will have an effect on mortgage rates, have made a difference to consumer appetite for home improvement projects. Home Depot, which last quarter cut its sales outlook on weakened consumer spending, is projected to report a 4.3 per cent increase in third-quarter revenues, to $39.3bn.

Other earnings: Tyson Foods will announce fourth-quarter earnings before the opening bell. Flutter and Spotify will post quarterly results after market close.

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Trump transition tracker: Trump nominates Mike Huckabee to be Israeli ambassador

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President-elect Donald Trump’s newly picked “border czar” Tom Homan addressed his forthcoming deportation plan and state leaders who have objected to sweeping immigration policies.

During an appearance on Fox News on Monday, Homan issued a warning to so-called “sanctuary” states and cities to “get the hell out of the way” of the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans.

File – In this Dec. 5, 2017 file photo, then Acting Director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan at a news conference in Washington.

“I saw today numerous governors from sanctuary states saying they’re going to step in the way. They better get the hell out of the way. Either you help us or get the hell out of the way, because ICE is going to do their job,” he warned, referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where he formerly served as director.

“I’ll double the workforce in that sanctuary city. We’re going to do our job despite the politics. We’re doing it. So get used to it, because we’re coming,” Homan said.

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When asked if he plans to deport American citizens, Homan said, “President Trump has made it clear we will prioritize public safety threats and national security threats first, and that’s how the focus would be.”

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Germany’s Olaf Scholz defies odds as party swings behind re-election bid

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Germany’s Olaf Scholz defies odds as party swings behind re-election bid

Olaf Scholz has just pulled the plug on his coalition and lost his parliamentary majority, with polls suggesting his party will be defeated in Germany’s upcoming snap election. Yet he still looks likely to be crowned as his party’s candidate for chancellor.

The government crisis that culminated last week with Scholz calling time on the three-party alliance plunged Germany into a new phase of turbulence. But Social Democrat leaders have rallied round him, steadying his status in a party that long nurtured doubts about their chancellor.

Some Social Democrats would still prefer to see him replaced on the ballot by Boris Pistorius, the popular defence minister. But they are the minority. Most expect an SPD congress to be held in the coming weeks to anoint Scholz as the party’s Kanzlerkandidat — regardless of his approval ratings.

The support for Scholz was on full display at an emotional meeting of the SPD parliamentary group last week when he was given a standing ovation by MPs.

Jens Spahn, an MP for the opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) and a former health minister, described the scene as “surreal”.

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“Here is Olaf Scholz, a failed chancellor, his coalition has just broken down, he’s sacked his finance minister and his SPD thinks it’s a cause for celebration?” Spahn told the Financial Times.

The incredulity in opposition ranks increased after a television interview with Scholz on Sunday evening in which he refused to admit mistakes and, in the view of some commentators, came across as cold and unsympathetic.

Some have openly questioned why the party still backs Scholz. TV presenter Micky Beisenherz compared him to Bruce Willis in the film The Sixth Sense. He “goes to work every day even though he’s long dead,” he wrote on X. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”

Just months ago, Scholz’s position was precarious. Some in the SPD blamed him for the party’s slump in support, with polls putting it at between 14 and 16 per cent over the past year, way behind the CDU on 30 to 32 per cent.

Many Social Democrats wonder whether they would be better off fielding defence minister Boris Pistorius © Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa

But Scholz’s standing among some of his party colleagues has paradoxically improved since the government’s collapse. They have hailed him as a hero who finally lanced the boil, ending a dysfunctional government riven by ideological conflict.

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For them, the sacking of finance minister Christian Lindner, leader of the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), was the inevitable climax of months of provocation.

“There is relief that we will no longer be subjected to endless humiliation by Lindner and the FDP,” said one SPD MP.

Scholz said he fired Lindner because he refused to suspend the “debt brake” — Germany’s constitutional cap on new borrowing — to allow for more funding for Ukraine. The issue has taken on greater urgency since US voters re-elected Donald Trump, who has questioned western aid to Kyiv.

The dismissal played well in the SPD’s grassroots. “It was a kind of liberation — long overdue,” said Dirk Smaczny, head of the party’s local branch in Rheinhausen-Mitte, near the Ruhr industrial city of Duisburg. “We’ve been waiting a long time for Scholz to show strong leadership, and he finally delivered it.”

“He could have said ‘let’s just muddle through another year’,” said Johannes Fechner, a senior SPD MP. “The fact he accepted that the country needed a new government, even though it might mean he’ll lose his job — the SPD rank-and-file really respect him for that.”

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Yet Scholz remains controversial in the party. Closely associated with the labour market reforms of chancellor Gerhard Schröder in the early 2000s that alienated working-class voters, he lost his bid for the party leadership in 2019 in a humiliating defeat.

He staged a remarkable comeback two years later, running for chancellor in 2021 and winning the election. He then brought together the SPD, FDP and Greens in a coalition that was unique in Germany’s history.

But his record has been clouded by countless internal rows over economic policy that he tried — and ultimately failed — to mediate. Scholz has seen the worst approval ratings of any postwar chancellor.

On Monday two SPD politicians from the chancellor’s home town of Hamburg, Markus Schreiber and Tim Stoberock, said he should make way for the defence minister.

“Our chances of winning the election or at least performing a lot better are much greater with [Pistorius], who has long been Germany’s most popular politician,” they wrote on Instagram.

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Scholz spent too much time cobbling together compromises “in technocratic language” which were then rejected by his coalition partners. “We believe the negative image the people in this country have of him can no longer be repaired,” they wrote.

Privately, some SPD lawmakers agreed that Pistorius might be a better bet. “But politics doesn’t work like that,” said one. “Scholz’s huge strategic advantage is that he holds the reins of power. He’s the one who took this step. He’s the one who announced early elections. That gives him a certain strength.”

Scholz has shown no inclination to stand aside — nor does he intend to put his candidacy to a party vote.

His spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit on Monday defended the absence of a formal selection process, saying there was no need — and also no time.

“First of all, he’s the natural candidate because he’s chancellor,” he told reporters. “Secondly, look at the clock . . . We’re going to have snap elections quite soon, if he loses the confidence vote. We all need to focus on that right now, and you can understand why.”

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Observers said that approach made sense, especially in light of what just happened in the US.

Wolfgang Schroeder, a political scientist at Kassel University, noted that the Democrats had hoped to improve their fortunes by substituting Joe Biden for Kamala Harris just months before the election.

“It injected some momentum, but it didn’t turn out to be long-lasting or effective,” he said. “For that reason I would advise the SPD against carrying out any grand experiments right now.”

MPs from the opposition CDU say that suits them, predicting that Scholz will be soundly beaten by their leader Friedrich Merz. “Olaf Scholz is the face of failure,” said CDU’s Spahn. “As such, we couldn’t wish for a better opponent.”

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