60 Rohingya die on a boat after weeks at sea
teknaf (bangladesh) — Sixty Rohingya died on a boat crammed with hundreds of people stranded in the Bay of Bengal for more than two months, two survivors said on Thursday.
Both said that the captain of the fishing trawler, carrying over 500 men, women and children, was also killed in a fight with those on board.
Nearly a million Rohingya live in squalid camps near Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar after fleeing a military offensive in 2017. Thousands try every year to reach other countries on crowded rickety boats.
Survivor Anwarul Islam said that after the ship was denied entry by both Malaysia and Thailand it headed back to Bangladesh where they were picked up by the coastguard on Wednesday.
“There were more than 500 people onboard. At least 60 of us died in the boat. We held on board their funeral prayers and dropped their bodies in the sea,” Islam said by phone. “We barely had food, freshwater, and medicines,” he said.
“The captain tried to rape one of our women and fighting broke out,” Islam said, stating the man was killed during the confrontation and his body thrown overboard.
His account was echoed by Anwar Alam, another survivor, who said the ordeal lasted two months and 18 days. “We entered Malaysia (waters) three times but they didn’t let us in. Many of us died in the heat and sweat. There were too many onboard, mostly women and children,” Alam said.
“The captain of the ship was killed when there was a quarrel between us and the crew.”
A Rohingya community leader in Bangladesh said there were 482 people on board the boat.
That suggests more than 50 people may have perished. “It made several attempts to land in Malaysia but was turned back. We think several boats carrying Rohingya are still at sea,” he said.
The Bangladesh coast guard said that other survivors had told them that 32 people died on board and their bodies dumped in the sea, and that the boat had tried to enter Malaysia and Thailand. —