Durian. A hundred of refugees including women and children staged in front of Pekanbaru immigration detention in Indonesia’s Riau province on Sept.7, requesting better accommodation for their shelters, Antara news agency reported.
“One room, sized three times four meters fills with six to seven people,” one of the refugee named Hikmat from Afganistan explained about their current accommodations.
Almost all of the protesters have been stranded in Indonesia more than five years waiting for possible resettlement to new countries.
Global situation and the changing of immigration policy of countries who are parties to United Nations Convention on Refugee contributes to uncertain period of time for asylum seekers to stay in their transit countries such as Indonesia with not to be resettled possibility.
Only 8,000 of more than 13,500 asylum seekers and refugees who are currently staying in Indonesia as of May 2020 data from UNHCR, are living in community houses which under assistance of IOM.
Yanto Ardianto, head of Pekanbaru immigration detention admitted insufficient capacity of existing community houses there.
There are eight community houses, home for 976 refugees in Pekanbaru compared to 29 units to host 1,700 people in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Ardianto explained.
Prolong waiting period also contributes to insufficiency capacity of those accommodations, he said.
“One room that previously accommodated a family with three children [but] now, they have five children,” Ardianto said.
