Boat carrying refugees sinks in Myanmar, 17 dead
[ad_1]
Yagoon: At least 17 migrants have died and many are missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees from Myanmar’s Rakhine state capsized at sea. The rescue team has given this information on Friday. Byar La, a rescue worker with the Shwe Yang Metta Foundation in Sittwe city, said a boat carrying more than 50 people capsized at sea on Sunday night this week. “We have received 17 bodies till yesterday,” he said. Rescue worker Byar La said, ‘We found eight people alive. The police have taken him for questioning.
He said rescuers were still trying to locate the missing, although the exact number on the ship was not known. A Rohingya aid worker in Maungdaw township on the border with Bangladesh said the boat capsized because of bad weather. About 500 others are still hoping to go to Malaysia after the accident. Rakhine in Buddhist-majority Myanmar is home to some six million Rohingya Muslims, who are considered migrants from Bangladesh and denied citizenship and freedom of movement. Every year thousands of Rohingya risk their lives to make the sea voyage from camps in Bangladesh and Myanmar to try to reach Malaysia and Indonesia.
More than 3,500 Rohingya in 39 ships could attempt to cross the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal in 2022, up from more than 700 the previous year, according to January figures from the UN refugee agency. The agency said some 348 Rohingya were killed or went missing at sea last year.
[ad_2]
Source link
