Video of cruise ship misrepresented as 'Rohingya refugees arriving in Indonesia'

"The Rohingya people have arrived at Surabaya, ready for Surabaya residents," says Indonesian-language text overlaid on the TikTok video, posted on December 19, 2023. 

The clip, which shows a white and blue vessel, had garnered more than 1.3 million views before it was deleted.

The post's caption says: "Get ready, Surabaya residents. The Rohingya are coming."

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Screenshot of the false post taken on January 12, 2024

The United Nations says more than 1,500 Rohingya refugees have arrived on the shores of Indonesia's Aceh province since mid-November 2023, the biggest influx in eight years.

Many say they fled escalating brutality in the camps in and around Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, which hold more than one million people and where gangs regularly abduct and torture residents for ransom. 

But the refugees have faced hostility in Indonesia. On December 27, 2023, hundreds of university students stormed a temporary shelter for members of the persecuted Myanmar minority, forcing them to leave.

The video also surfaced on TikTok and Facebook.

However, the video shows a cruise ship for tourists, not a vessel transporting refugees.

Cruise ship

A close look at the video reveals the words "Holland America Line" written on the side of the ship, along with the cruise operator's blue logo on its funnels (archived link).

Below is a screenshot of the false video, with distinctive features marked by AFP:

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Screenshot of the false video

Adrienne Carter, a spokeswoman for Holland America Line, confirmed the ship was part of their fleet.

She said it appeared to show the Westerdam, a premium cruise ship that can host 1,916 guests (archived link).

Karlinda Sari, a spokeswoman for Pelindo Regional 3 -- a state-owned port operator that runs harbours in East Java and six other provinces -- also said the video showed the Westerdam cruise ship (archived link). 

While it was not possible to confirm if the video was filmed in Surabaya, the capital of East Java province, both Carter and Karlinda said the Westerdam visited the city's Tanjung Perak port -- Indonesia's second busiest port -- several times in 2023.

They said none of these trips involved Rohingya refugees. 

"Passengers were either paying guests or crew members," Carter told AFP.

Karlinda added that Pelindo III "has never recorded" any Rohingya refugee arrivals by boats along the Surabaya coast. 

According to data from the Aceh chapter of the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS), the first Rohingya refugee arrivals in Aceh were recorded in January 2009 (archived link).

Their boats have also landed in North Sumatra province (archived link).

AFP previously has debunked other misinformation about Rohingya refugees in Indonesia here, here and here.