A large crowd of Indonesian students stormed a convention centre housing hundreds of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in the city of Banda Aceh on Wednesday, demanding they be deported, Reuters footage showed.
A city police spokesperson in Banda Aceh did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Footage showed the students, many wearing green jackets, run into the building's large basement space, where crowds of Rohingya men, women and children were seated on the floor and crying in fear. The Rohingya were then led out, some carrying their belongings in plastic sacks, and taken to trucks, as the protesters looked on.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said it in a statement it was "deeply disturbed to see a mob attack on a site sheltering vulnerable refugee families, [the] majority being children and women" and called for better protection.
"The mob broke a police cordon and forcibly put 137 refugees on two trucks, and moved them to another location in Banda Aceh. The incident has left refugees shocked and traumatized," it said.
Rohingya refugees have experienced increasing hostility and rejection in Indonesia as locals grow frustrated at the numbers of boats arriving with the ethnic minority, who face persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has blamed the recent surge in arrivals on human trafficking, and pledged to work with international organizations to offer temporary shelter.
According to the UNHCR over 1,500 Rohingya have landed in Indonesia since November.
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