Around 250 feared missing after boat carrying Rohingya and Bangladeshis capsizes

GENEVA: Around 250 people, including children, were feared missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals capsized in the Andaman Sea, according to the United Nations.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the trawler had left Teknaf in southern Bangladesh and was heading to Malaysia when it apparently went down in bad weather.

The trawler, which departed from Teknaf in southern Bangladesh and was on its way to Malaysia, reportedly sank due to heavy winds, rough seas, and overcrowding

The UN agency said preliminary information suggested the vessel was carrying about 280 people and had departed Bangladesh on April 4. The exact circumstances of the incident were not immediately clear.

The Bangladesh Coast Guard said one of its vessels, which was travelling to Indonesia, rescued nine people from the sea on April 9, including one woman. Bangladesh Coast Guard spokesman Lieutenant Commander Sabbir Alam Sujan told AFP that the Bangladeshi-flagged MT Meghna Pride found several people adrift in the water.

The Bangladeshi flag carrier MT Meghna Pride … spotted several people floating in the sea using drums and logs and rescued them from deep waters near the Andaman Islands,

One of the survivors, 40-year-old Rafiqul Islam, told AFP that traffickers had persuaded him to board the vessel with the promise of employment in Malaysia. He said some passengers were confined in a holding area on the trawler and that some of them died there.

“A number of us were kept in the holding area of the trawler, some died there. I was burned by oil that spilt from the trawler”, he stated.

He added that the boat had travelled for four days before capsizing. “We floated for nearly 36 hours before a ship rescued us from deep water.”

Thousands of Rohingya flee Myanmar each year by sea, escaping persecution and conflict in their home country. The Rohingya aboard the latest vessel were likely among those leaving the vast refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where more than one million people who fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state are living in difficult conditions.

Rakhine has also seen intense fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army, an ethnic minority rebel group, over control of the region.

Malaysia, a relatively wealthier country in the region, hosts millions of migrants from poorer Asian countries, many of them undocumented and employed in sectors such as construction and agriculture. Sea journeys arranged by human trafficking networks remain dangerous, with overcrowded boats frequently at risk of sinking.

UNHCR said the latest incident showed the consequences of prolonged displacement and the lack of lasting solutions for the Rohingya.

@This tragedy is a reminder of the efforts urgently needed to address the root causes of displacement in Myanmar and create conditions that would allow Rohingya refugees to return home voluntarily, safely and with dignity”, he stated.

The Andaman Sea lies along the western coasts of Myanmar, Thailand and the Malay Peninsula. Last year, UNHCR said 427 Rohingya were feared dead at sea in two separate shipwrecks off the coast of Myanmar in May.