At least three people died and around 20 were missing on Tuesday off the coast of Bangladesh after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees to Malaysia sank, according to a new report from the Bangladeshi authorities.
“The boat sank after leaving the coast at 5:30 a.m. due to bad weather in the Bay of Bengal,” Bangladesh Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Al Amin told AFP, adding that “the boat was heading for Malaysia”.
Bangladeshi police say at least three bodies washed up on the shore in the coastal town of Halbunia.
“We recovered the bodies. They are three young Rohingya women aged between 18 and 20,” police inspector Nur Mohammad told AFP.
Coastguard Commander Ashiq Ahmed said the ship was likely to have some 65 people on board.
“We have rescued 45 people, including 41 Rohingya refugees and four Bangladeshis,” he told AFP, according to revised figures.
“Nearly 20 people are still missing. The rescue operation is still ongoing,” he continued.
Around 750,000 members of the Muslim Rohingya minority had fled Burma after a brutal offensive, launched by the army in 2017, and found asylum in neighboring Bangladesh where more than 100,000 refugees victims of previous violence were already residing.
Last July, the International Court of Justice, the highest legal body of the UN, considered itself competent to judge an accusation of genocide of the Rohingyas formulated by Gambia against Burma.
In March, the United States for the first time officially declared that the Rohingya minority had been victims of genocide perpetrated by the Burmese army in 2016 and 2017.
The Rohingya survive crammed into unsanitary camps in Bangladesh and refuse to return to their country until they are granted citizenship rights and security guarantees.
This situation prompts hundreds of Rohingyas every year to pay smugglers to try to get to Malaysia, where the largest Rohingya diaspora lives, in unsafe boats, risking their lives.