A boat carrying members of the Rohingya community from Myanmar has sunk near the Thailand-Malaysia border, with hundreds still missing.
Seven bodies were recovered and 13 were rescued, the Malaysian maritime agency said on Sunday.
Rescuers were combing an area of 170 square nautical miles near Langkawi island, Malaysia, on Saturday after a boat with 300 people on board left Myanmar’s Rakhine State three days earlier, according to the maritime agency head for the area Romli Mustafa.
Myanmar’s impoverished Rakhine State has suffered years of conflict, hunger and ethnic violence mostly targeting the Rohingya. Driven out of their homes following a brutal 2017 military crackdown, some 1.3 million Rohingya live as refugees in densely-packed camps in neighbouring Bangladesh.
Kedah Province Police Chief Adzli Abu Shah told Malaysian state media that 300 people initially boarded a large vessel from Myanmar but were instructed to transfer onto three smaller boats, each carrying about 100 people, to avoid detection as they neared Malaysia.
The status of the other two boats was unknown, and a search-and-rescue operation was ongoing, he said.
Facing violence at home in Myanmar and increasingly difficult living conditions in Bangladesh, Rohingya from both countries regularly attempt perilous journeys by sea, including to Malaysia.
More than 5,100 Rohingya have taken boats to leave Myanmar and Bangladesh between January and early November this year, with nearly 600 people reported dead or missing, according to data from the U.N. Refugee Agency.
REUTERS
