A ship carrying 180 Rohingya is lacking at sea and presumed sunk, a UN company says.
The potential sinking of a ship with 180 Muslim-majority Rohingya on board will make 2022 one of many worst years for the neighborhood as refugees attempt to flee determined situations in camps in Bangladesh, in keeping with the United Nations refugee company.
Practically a million Rohingya from Myanmar reside in crowded services in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, together with tens of hundreds who fled their residence nation after its army performed a lethal crackdown in 2017.
In Buddhist-majority Myanmar, most Rohingya are denied citizenship and are seen as unlawful immigrants from South Asia.
The UN Excessive Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) mentioned over the weekend it feared {that a} boat, which began its journey from Bangladesh on the finish of November was lacking at sea, with all 180 on board presumed lifeless.
The UNHCR mentioned the vessel, which was not seaworthy, might have began to crack in early December earlier than shedding contact. “We hope towards hope that the 180 lacking are nonetheless alive someplace on the market,” UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch advised Reuters information company.
The UNHCR estimates almost 900 Rohingya died or went lacking within the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal in 2013 and greater than 700 in 2014. A number of hundred are feared lifeless or lacking at sea this yr already, earlier than the most recent incident. “One of many worst years for lifeless and lacking after 2013 and 2014,” Baloch mentioned of 2022, including the variety of individuals attempting to flee had returned to ranges seen earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Developments present the numbers reaching again to 2020, when over 2,400 individuals tried the dangerous sea crossings, with greater than 200 individuals lifeless or lacking.”
The variety of Rohingya leaving Bangladesh in boats this yr has jumped greater than fivefold this yr from a yr earlier, rights teams estimate.
Baloch mentioned it was not clear the place precisely the boat with 180 on board went lacking, nor whether or not the lifting of COVID restrictions in Southeast Asia, a favoured vacation spot for the Rohingya, was resulting in the frenzy of individuals.
Sayedur Rahman, 38, who fled to Malaysia in 2012 from Myanmar, mentioned his spouse, two sons aged 17 and 13, and a daughter aged 12 had been among the many lacking.
“In 2017, my household got here to Bangladesh to avoid wasting their lives,” Rahman mentioned, referring to that yr’s exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar.
“However they’re now all gone … Now I’m devastated,” Rahman mentioned. “We Rohingya are left to die … on the land, at sea. All over the place.”
Earlier this month, two Myanmar Rohingya activist teams mentioned as much as 20 individuals died of starvation or thirst on what the UNHCR mentioned was a separate boat that was stranded at sea for 2 weeks off India’s coast. The boat, with at the least 100 individuals on board, was mentioned to be in Malaysian waters.
Amid the dreaded deaths, some boats have made land or been rescued at sea.
On Monday the Worldwide Group for Migration mentioned in a press release that 57 Rohingya males disembarked in Indonesia’s Aceh Besar district early on December 25 with the help of area people members.
It mentioned the male-only boat is believed to have set off from Bangladesh and spent almost a month drifting at sea.
Indonesian officers didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Two boats carrying a complete of 230 Rohingya refugees, together with ladies and youngsters, landed on the shores of Indonesia’s Aceh province in November, whereas this month, Sri Lanka’s navy rescued 104 Rohingya adrift off the Indian Ocean island’s northern coast.
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