20 Rohingya dead after boat sinks off coast of Bangladesh

DHAKA, Bangladesh - The death toll from a boat that sank in Bangladesh while carrying Rohingya people fleeing from Myanmar to 20 on Thursday after another 14 bodies were recovered, said a local police official.

Chailau Marma, additional superintendent of police in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district, some 292 kilometers southeast of capital Dhaka, said the bodies were recovered from the coast in the morning.

"Six bodies were recovered by Wednesday night," he said.

The police official said so far there was no exact information about the accident, which occurred on the Naf river.

"We're yet to find a survivor to know what exactly happened at the time and how many Rohingya people were on board the boat, which capsized on the Naf river dividing Bangladesh and Myanmar."

The boat reportedly anchored near the Shah Porir Island in the Bay of Bengal for a couple of days after the Bangladesh forces prevented the vessel from entering Bangladesh territory.

The International Organization for Migration said Wednesday that more than 18,000 Rohingya people had fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar's western Rakhine state amid a wave of violence that flared in the region last week.

Sources said thousands of Rohingya, mostly women, children and elderly people, have been waiting in no-man's land along Bangladesh's southeastern Naikhyangchhari border to enter Bangladesh territory.

Bangladesh, which shares about 271 km of border with Myanmar, has refused repeated local and international appeals to accept the Rohingyas, who are fleeing coordinated extremist attacks on border posts.

An incident on Aug 25 left 100 people dead, including about 80 insurgents and 12 members of the security forces.

Bangladesh's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Bangladesh had taken note of renewed clashes after the attacks on the Myanmar Border Guard Police posts in Rakhine last Friday.

Recalling the influx of Myanmar people into Bangladesh due to similar military operations in the aftermath of terrorist attacks on Oct 9, 2016, which resulted in about 85,000 civilians crossing the border, a Bangladesh Foreign Ministry official expressed serious concern at the possibility of the recurrence of such a situation.

He said Bangladesh already hosts around 400,000 Myanmar nationals.

Officials in Bangladesh say growing numbers of Rohingya are trying to cross the Naf river that divides the two countries in rickety boats, which often do not survive the rough waters, as they become increasingly desperate to escape.

Xinhua - Afp

(China Daily 09/01/2017 page12)