According to two Myanmar Rohingya activist groups, at least 100 ethnic Rohingya are stranded in a boat off the Andaman Islands in India, and as many as 16 to 20 may have perished from thirst, hunger, or drowning.
According to a source, five Indian ships approached the stranded boat late on Tuesday.
In order to escape the squalor of Bangladeshi refugee camps and the deadly violence in Myanmar, many Muslim Rohingya risk their lives each year by boarding rickety vessels. Numerous people try to reach Malaysia.
He did not have any additional information to share, according to an Indian Navy spokesperson. A request for clarification was not met with a response from a Coast Guard spokesperson.
“We think that as many as twenty people have died; some of them fell overboard out of desperation, others from starvation and thirst. Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, which aids Myanmar’s Rohingya, called this “absolutely awful and outrageous.”
Perilous journey
The Rohingya Working Group of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network stated that the group had been lost for more than two weeks.
According to Lilianne Fan, chair of the Rohingya Working Group of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, “We heard late last night that there were some Indian vessels approaching the boat so we are awaiting updates now.”
“We hope that the Indian Coastguard or the Indian Navy will be able to rescue the boat and disembark it as soon as possible.” These individuals have been stranded for more than two weeks on a damaged boat without food or water. We’ve been told that up to 16 people may already have died.
Fleeing for years
Over the weekend, the navy of Sri Lanka was able to rescue yet another boat that was carrying more than a hundred Rohingya.
After an army crackdown in late summer 2017, more than 750,000 members of the Rohingya ethnic group fled Myanmar. The UN at the time referred to this as “textbook ethnic cleansing,” and rights groups have referred to it as “genocide.”
Rights groups have documented the widespread rapes, murders, and burning of thousands of Rohingya homes by Myanmar security forces.
The authorities in Myanmar have denied carrying out systematic atrocities and have stated that they were fighting an insurgency.
In an effort to seek a better life in other nations in the region, Rohingya Muslims have attempted to leave the camps in Bangladesh by sea.
Source: TRTWorld
