The UN is requesting that nations in South East Asia’s Andaman Sea region help a boat carrying at least 150 Rohingya refugees that has been idling without power for the past two weeks.
Many passengers, including children, have already passed away, according to those on board the boat who have been reached via satellite phone.
They claimed that there was a shortage of food and water.
On Friday, the UN issued its appeal, but there has been no response as of yet.
The small fishing boat left southern Bangladesh last month and has now been at sea for more than three weeks. Those on board are believed to have been trying to reach Malaysia.
The boat is open, with little shelter, and its engine appears to have failed a few days after it departed.
It has now drifted hundreds of kilometres off course into Indian waters, near the Nicobar Islands.
An activist helping Rohingya in Bangladesh made contact with someone on the boat on Sunday.
“We are dying here,” the refugee said, adding that those on board had not eaten anything for more than a week.
The Rohingya are an ethnic minority in Myanmar many of whose members fled to Bangladesh in 2017 to escape a campaign of genocide launched by the Burmese military.
Many Rohingya try to escape from overcrowded refugee camps in southern Bangladesh by taking high-risk sea journeys at this time of year, after the monsoon in the region has passed.
Their numbers have grown because of deteriorating conditions in the camps, while more Rohingya who are still in Myanmar are also trying to leave following the military coup there last year.
At least five boats are known to have left in the past two months.
One of them with more than 100 Rohingya on board was rescued by Sri Lanka’s navy off the island’s northern coast on Sunday evening, Sri Lanka’s navy said.
The group included women and children. Four people were taken to hospital for minor sickness, a navy spokesman said.
It was unclear where that group had begun their journey or where they were trying to get to.
Source: BBC.com