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Jakarta: The word spread via text message.
Forty-seven Rohingya and Bangladeshi people had been rescued from the sea off Tamiang, in the Indonesian province of Aceh, and they desperately needed help.
The people of Tamiang in Aceh donate food, clothes and toiletries to Rohingya refugees.Credit: Ktna Aceh Tamiang/Facebook
Early Saturday, the head of the Tamiang Farmers and Fishermen Association, Muhammad Hendra, sent a text to his network of contacts.
Within hours the local community had donated so many clothes he had to tell them to stop.
A banner makes it clear Tamiang welcomes Rohingya Muslims.Credit: Ktna Aceh Tamiang/Facebook
There were also 30 kilograms of rice, instant noodles, money and slippers – because, Mr Hendra says, the people were all barefoot.
"You know they were on boats for so long, they lost everything, we felt pity for them."
He is matter of fact about the extraordinary generosity of people who are themselves poor. The people of Tamiang are veterans of suffering, having lived through the 2004 tsunami and then the great floods of 2006.
"In all of those disasters, we were helped by outsiders, both by non-Aceh people and by foreigners," he says. "The help was provided without looking at our background, such as our religion. So now, we have the Rohingya and Bangladeshi people stranded on our land, they've been weeks, maybe months at sea and it's worse than what we experienced with the tsunami."
Generosity from a poor community: Tamiang locals organising donations.Credit: Ktna Aceh Tamiang
The people of Aceh regard the tsunami as punishment from God, Mr Hendra explains. But he sees the lot of the Rohingyas, who are persecuted by Rakhine Buddhists and live in an apartheid state in their home country of Myanmar, as more serious than that of the Acehnese who faced the wrath of God.
"The Rohingyas were punished by men, they were expelled because of their religion. I think what men did to men was more difficult than what God did to us through the tsunami."
Mr Hendra was told of rape and murder on the boats.
"They did their s--- on the boats, everything was done on the boats. Bad things happened every day for weeks, maybe months. I cannot imagine the state of their psychology."
It turned out there were already 600 refugees in the Acehnese city of Langsa, an hour's drive away. "Apparently these people were part of the larger group," Mr Hendra says.
Donations of rice, soap, water, mattresses, money and instant noodles continue to pour in, but what's lacking now, are the things needed to perform religious rituals – headscarves, prayer mats and Korans.
Mr Hendra says Rohingya people are Muslims, just like the people of Aceh.
"Aceh is known as the veranda of Mecca," he says. "The Rohingyas were rejected by Thailand, they were rejected by Malaysia, even our own Navy rejected them. I don't understand why the Navy did that, Aceh people helped them."
Cynics have suggested on social media that the people of Aceh responded so quickly because the Rohingya are fellow Muslims. Mr Hendra disagrees.
"We did it first of all because of humanity and secondly because they are Muslims. A few are non-Muslim but we helped them because we are human beings."