The bodies of 23 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar’s Rakhine state have been discovered after their boat capsized.
According to reports, eight people made it through the catastrophe, but thirty more remain missing.
According to the survivors, they were trying to travel to Malaysia on Sunday when their boat, which was carrying more than 50 passengers, capsized and the crew abandoned it.
Hundreds of Rohingyas travel perilously by sea to Malaysia or Indonesia every year.
They are running away from Bangladeshi refugee camps that are overcrowded and persecution in Myanmar. According to a rescue team that spoke to BBC Burmese, there were 13 women and 10 men, all Muslims from the Rohingya ethnic minority, killed this week.
In Myanmar, which is primarily a Buddhist country, the Muslim Rohingyas constitute an ethnic minority. In 2017, many of them fled to Bangladesh to avoid a genocide campaign carried out by the Burmese military. Since the military coup in 2021, many who are still in Myanmar have been attempting to leave as well.
The boat’s survivors this week recall being hit by a big wave close to Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine.
According to them, the smugglers abandoned the boat after receiving payment of about $4,000 (£3,153) per person for the trip to Malaysia. The victims’ bodies had either washed ashore or been picked up by other boats.
At this time of year, when monsoon storm season is at its height, travelling across the Andaman Sea in crowded fishing boats is particularly risky.
The majority of Rohingyas try to cross between October and May.
They are willing to take the chance because of the unbearably bad circumstances in which they are forced to live, whether as refugees in horrendously crowded camps in Bangladesh or as political prisoners facing discrimination and movement restrictions in Myanmar. They frequently sell their only assets, such as land, to finance the trip.