Around 250 people are missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals capsized in the Andaman Sea, the UN’s refugee and migration agencies have reported. The trawler, which had set off from Teknaf in southern Bangladesh bound for Malaysia, is believed to have sunk due to heavy winds, rough seas and overcrowding.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement that the vessel was carrying more than 250 men, women and children. The exact circumstances remain unclear, but preliminary information indicates the boat left Bangladesh on 4 April with about 280 people on board.
Thousands of Rohingya, Myanmar’s persecuted Muslim minority, risk their lives every year fleeing repression and civil war, often travelling on makeshift boats. The passengers on this boat were likely leaving the huge refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where more than a million Rohingya live in squalid conditions after being driven from their homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
The Bangladesh Coast Guard said one of its ships, the MT Meghna Pride, rescued nine people, including one woman, from the sea on 9 April. Survivor Rafiqul Islam told AFP that traffickers had lured him onto the boat with the promise of a job in Malaysia. “A number of us were kept in the holding area of the trawler; some died there. I was burned by oil that spilled from the trawler,” he said, adding that the vessel travelled for four days before capsizing. “We floated for nearly 36 hours before a ship rescued us from deep water.”
The UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration called on the international community to increase and sustain funding for life-saving assistance for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and support for host communities. “This tragedy highlights the devastating human cost of protracted displacement and the continued absence of durable solutions for the Rohingya,” they said.
