At least 15 people died drowned in the sinking on Tuesday of an overloaded boat of Rohingya refugees off the coast of Bangladesh. About fifty other passengers are missing.
A total of 138 people, mostly women and children, boarded this barely 13-meter fishing boat in hopes of reaching Malaysia via the Bay of Bengal, a dangerous journey of 2,000 kilometers. They sought to escape the misery and the dead end of the refugee camps.
Capacity for 50 people
The shipwreck took place near the Bangladeshi island of Saint-Martin, near the coast of the district of Cox's Bazar (southeast). Nearly a million Rohingya refugees, a persecuted Muslim minority in neighboring Burma, live there in camps from which they are prohibited from leaving. The boat “sank due to overload. The boat was designed to carry a maximum of 50 people. He also had cargo, "said Bangladesh Coast Guard spokesman Hamidul Islam.
According to accounts by survivors collected by AFP, the boat hit underwater corals in shallow waters. Fishermen spotted survivors calling for help and raised the alarm. A total of 71 people were rescued. Among the dead were eleven women and four children. Three of the survivors, including a Bangladeshi, are currently being held by authorities on suspicion of being traffickers, said the Coast Guard commander.
Prey for human trafficking
One of the most persecuted stateless people on the planet, the Rohingya are caught between a Burma who rejects it and a Bangladesh who refuses to let them integrate on its soil and park them in summary camps. Under these conditions, the refugees constitute easy prey for the traffickers who offer them to reach the Muslim-majority countries of Southeast Asia for exorbitant sums.
The shipwreck "was an announced tragedy. Rohingya refugees live in conditions of confinement in the camps. They are increasingly trying to leave the camps and become victims of human trafficking networks, ”said Shakirul Islam, an expert on migration. It is estimated that 25,000 Rohingyas fled Bangladesh and Burma in 2015 trying to reach Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia by boat. Hundreds of them drowned.
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