Indonesia has announced it will allow a boat packed with Rohingya refugees, which had become stranded off its coast, to dock after calls from aid organisations to allow the vessel to seek refuge.

Local officials in Aceh, a province on the western island of Sumatra, had said on Tuesday that they would provide the roughly 120 passengers on board with food, medicine and water, but would not allow them to seek refuge in the Southeast Asian country, despite international pleas to do so.

“Today, the Indonesian government decided, in the name of humanity, to give refuge to Rohingya refugees currently afloat on a boat near Biereun district, Aceh,” Armed Wijaya, an official at Indonesia’s chief security ministry, said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The decision was made after considering the emergency conditions the refugees are experiencing onboard the boat,” he said. Its passengers were mostly women and children, he added.

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The stranded boat had been at risk of sinking within days, two fishermen told Reuters news agency on Wednesday.

“There were two places where the boat was leaking. There was [a] lot of water,” said Aditya Setiawan, one of the fishermen. In a video seen by Reuters, dozens of people appeared to be packed above and below the deck of the long, wooden skiff.

Al Jazeera’s Jessica Washington, reporting from the Indonesian capital Jakarta, said the decision to allow the refugees to land was “not entirely surprising”.

“In the past, Indonesia has accepted refugees that have arrived by water near Aceh. But it is worth noting that Indonesia is not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees and it is not seen as a destination for permanent resettlement,” Washington said.

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