At least 12 Rohingya refugees, most of them children, drowned and scores more were missing yesterday after their overloaded boat capsized in the latest tragedy to strike those fleeing violence in Myanmar.
Authorities in Bangladesh said the boat was carrying between 60 and 100 people when it overturned and sank late on Sunday in rough seas.
More than half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state for Bangladesh since late August. Many walk for days through thick jungle before making the perilous boat journey across the Naf River that divides the two nations.
Photo: AFP
Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) official Abdul Jalil yesterday said that they had recovered the bodies of 10 children, an elderly woman and a man after an all-night rescue operation.
Survivor Sayed Hossain wept as he watched the body of his two-and-a-half-year-old son being taken away to the local cemetery for burial.
“We set off at around 6pm. We did not have any choice but to leave our village,” he said, telling how the overloaded boat overturned when it hit a shoal and sank in rough water.
“They [security forces] have restricted our movements. Many are starving as we could not even go to shop or market to buy food,” said the 30-year-old Rohingya farmhand, who lived in a village east of Myanmar’s Buthidaung township.
Hossain’s mother, his pregnant wife and two children are missing.
Border guard boats have rescued 13 Rohingya and the rest are missing, Jalil said, adding many may have swum to the Rakhine coast.
Area coast guard commander Alauddin Nayan said the boat capsized near the village of Galachar with nearly 100 people on board, more than half of them children.
Villagers at Shah Porir Dwip where the boats mostly land said the Rohingya were increasingly traveling at night to avoid strict border patrols in Bangladesh, making the journey even more dangerous.
Nearly 520,000 Rohingya Muslims have now entered Bangladesh since Rohingya militant raids on police posts in Myanmar on Aug. 25 prompted a military backlash.
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