Bangladesh rescues hundreds of Rohingya drifting at sea for nearly two months

At least 30 Rohingya refugees died at sea, and almost 400 were rescued from a boat which had been adrift for over two months as they attempted to sail to safety in Malaysia, survivors have reported.

The 396 surviving refugees, who were mostly women and children, had set sail in a fishing trawler from the camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh in mid-February.

The refugee camp, one of the largest in the world, is home to over a million Rohingya who fled over the border from Myanmar, starting in August 2017, following a brutal army crackdown that the UN has described both as ethnic cleaning and akin to genocide.

Mohammad, a 40-year-old refugee who was among those rescued from the boat with his three family members, described the horror of being on the ship for 58 days. He said they had reached Malaysia, but been turned away.

“Within a week or 10 days after setting sail we reached close to Malaysia,” Mohammad told the Guardian from the quarantine centre where he was being held. “But the Malaysian coast guard stopped our trawler. They would not let us get closer to the land. Our boatmen made several attempts to bypass the coast guard patrol and reach the shore. But, all attempts by our boatmen failed. We knew that because of the coronavirus outbreak in Malaysia the authorities became unusually strict and did not allow us to land there.”

He said the boat had lingered close to the Malaysian shore for several days to try to sneak ashore, but without success, and turned back for Bangladesh.

“We ran short of food and water,” said Mohammad. “Many children and women were crying. Around 30 people on the boat died because of getting no food and water and and we all started losing hope as the bodies of other refugees had to be thrown into the sea.”

It took the coastguard three days to locate the boat in the Bay of Bengal after a tip-off. According to the coastguard, there were 182 women, 150 men and 64 children rescued from the boat who were severely malnourished, dehydrated and could barely walk when they landed. “They were at sea for about two months and were starving,” said Bangladesh coastguard spokesman Lieutenant Shah Zia Rahman.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees confirmed in a statement that “around 30 or more refugees may have passed away at sea as the boat ran out of food, water and fuel during a nearly two months long journey at sea.”

The rescued Rohingya were brought back to Cox’s bazar, where they were placed in quarantine to ensure they did not bring Covid-19 into the camps, a huge concern among authorities and NGOs. While there are still no reported cases in Cox’s, there is a fear that if it takes hold in the squalid, cramped camps where up to ten people live in a huts with no running water and where there are limited healthcare facilities and no ventilators, the spread will be uncontrollable and it will be difficult to treat.

“We have cordoned off the place where they have landed,” said Rahman. “We could not question them because of the fear they could be infected with the coronavirus.”

This was one of at least three boats carrying hundreds of Rohingya that have been rescued during an attempt to reach Malaysia. In early April, a boat was intercepted off the coast of the Malaysian island of Langkawi, carrying around 200 Rohingya, mainly women and children.

Noor Hossain, a Rohingya community leader from Balukhali refugee camp, said there was increasing desperation in the camps, as stricter lockdowns were imposed including a recent block on movement and mobile internet, which was enticing more refugees to reach out to traffickers to help them escape in search of a better life. Malaysia, which is a Muslim-majority country and has a large Rohingya community, is a popular destination.

“Many young and ambitious Rohingya refugees feel that in Bangladesh they face a grim future,” said Hossain. “In recent times, after the Bangladesh government imposed more restrictions on the Rohingyas and planned to relocate some of them to a dangerous uninhabited island [Bhasan Char], more and more Rohingya are willing to flee Bangladesh.”

Hossain said that it was also big business for traffickers and agents to traffic Rohingya women from the Cox’s Bazar camps, so they could be wives for Rohingya men already settled in Malaysia.

“Rohingya families can’t see an end to their plight and are increasingly willing to risk death or injury by making perilous journeys at sea in overcrowded, unsafe boats – often at the mercy of traffickers and criminal organisations – all for a chance at a better life,” said Athena Rayburn of Save the Children.

Amnesty International’s Biraj Patnaik said: “Having first fled crimes against humanity in Myanmar and then being turned away by Malaysia, they have nowhere left to go – a fact that is harrowingly demonstrated by the callous indifference of other governments that refuse to give them sanctuary.”