Two boats adrift in Andaman Sea with 400 Rohingya Muslims need rescue: UN agency
The UN agency said that there are about '400 children, women and men looking death in the eye if there are no moves to save these desperate souls'
Some 400 Rohingya Muslims who fled Bangladesh are believed to be aboard two boats adrift in the Andaman Sea and need immediate help if they have to be saved, say a UN refugee agency and aid workers.
The number of Rohingyas fleeing by boats – usually from squalid, overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh – has been rising since last year due to cuts in food rations and a spike in gang violence.
“There are about 400 children, women and men looking death in the eye if there are no moves to save these desperate souls,” Babar Baloch, the agency's Bangkok-based spokesperson, told Associated Press.
The whereabouts of the other boat are unclear.
The boats apparently sailed from Bangladesh and are reported to have been at sea for about two weeks, Baloch said.
The captain of one of the boats, contacted by AP, said he had 180-190 people on board. They were out of food and water and the engine was damaged.
Rohingya SOS
The captain, who gave his name as Maan Nokim, said he feared all on board will die if they do not receive help.
On Sunday, Nokim said the boat was 320 km from Thailand's west coast. A Thai navy spokesperson, contacted on Monday, said he had no information about the boats.
The location is about the same distance from Indonesia's northernmost province of Aceh, where another boat with 139 people landed on Saturday on Sabang Island, off the tip of Sumatra, Baloch said.
Those on the ship included 58 children, 45 women and 36 men. Hundreds more arrived in Aceh last month.
About 740,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to the camps in Bangladesh since August 2017 after a brutal counterinsurgency campaign tore through their communities.
Most refugees leaving the camps by sea attempt to reach Muslim-dominated Malaysia, hoping to find work there. Thailand turns them away or detains them. Indonesia also puts them in detention.
Fleeing Bangladesh
Baloch said if the two boats adrift did not get assistance, it could lead to another tragedy such as in December 2022 when a boat with 180 aboard went missing.
Save the Children said more than 3,570 Rohingya Muslims had left Bangladesh and Myanmar this year, up from nearly 2,000 in the same period of 2022.
Of those who left this year, 225 are known to have died or were missing, with many others not accounted for.
(With agency inputs)
