In a sad illustration of the desperate conditions faced by foreign refugees living in Indonesia, dozens of people who had been living on the sidewalks of Jalan Kebon Sirih in Central Jakarta months ago are once again sleeping rough on the same street after the Jakarta government told them to vacate the complex where they had temporarily been given shelter when the meager budget given for their aid ran out on August 31.
Now, the Jakarta government says they are once again preparing a new temporary shelter for those refugees once again living on Kebon Sirih so that they can eventually be moved to yet another temporary shelter.
In August, a group of around 1,900 refugees were given shelter and aid at a temporary shelter in Kalideres, West Jakarta. Despite the government cutting off electricity, water and other basic amenities to the shelter once their budget had run out at the end of August, hundreds of refugees refused to leave as they had nowhere else to go.
After the Kalideres complex was closed, responsibility for the refugees was handed over to The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR). Many of them were able to receive subsidized housing or other placements through the International Organization for Migration (IOM), but around 300 people who could not be accommodated remained in the Kalideres Complex.
In early September, Jakarta’s Social Affairs department began preparing a new temporary shelter in Bambu Apus, East Jakarta, for those remaining refugees. Eventually, some of them were transferred there from Kalideres, but due to limited space, not all could be accommodated. Many of those who couldn’t ended up on the streets of Kebon Sirih, near the offices of the UNHCR, where many of those same refugees had been living before Kalideres.
Jakarta Governor Anies said they could not evict the refugees from the sidewalks if they didn’t have anywhere else to place them, so he said that other temporary housing arrangements would be made for the 81 people still living on the street.
“This afternoon there will be a meeting between Kesbangpol (Directorate General of Politics and Public Administration), the Ministry of Social Affairs and UNHCR. The point is that [the refugees] currently do not have a place to go because they cannot be moved to Bambu Apus because of limited space, this afternoon we will discuss it and find a temporary place,” Anies said today as quoted by Kompas.
Anies mentioned that, from the data he had received, those still living on the sidewalks of Kebon Sirih consisted of 7 Sudanese nationals and 74 Afghan nationals.
Despite government officials previously claiming they had already run out of funds to provide aid to the refugees, Anies did not mention budgetary concerns related to the new shelter. Officials have also not yet indicated a deadline for how long they can provide shelter to refugees at Bambu Apus.
The plight of refugees stuck in Indonesia is immense. Even those who attain official UN refugee status face an estimated wait that has gone from “many years” to “likely never” before they can be resettled to a refugee-friendly country. Stuck in legal limbo and with no right to work in Indonesia, unsurprisingly, many have ended up homeless.
According to UN data, Indonesia is home to about 14,000 refugees, consisting mostly of people from Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan. Not so long ago, UNHCR promised resettlement times of two to three years, but in the intervening time the number of refugees has increased while many of those countries willing to take them in are being pressured to close their doors, leading the UN agency to tell refugees that they may have to wait in Indonesia indefinitely to have any hope of resettlement.
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