Without life jackets, a swimmer in open water might last 24 hours, if that. Romli Mustafa, who heads the maritime agency’s regional office, put it that bluntly when he briefed reporters on Monday about the search off Langkawi Island. Rescuers were still looking anyway. Some of the people from the sunken boat, he said, might be clinging to floating debris.
The boat went down on Thursday near the resort island, close to the Thai border. It carried roughly 70 people, most of them Rohingya. Thirteen were pulled out alive. The BBC counted at least seven dead on Monday, and Reuters later reported that bodies had reached 21, 12 of them in Malaysia and nine across the border.
A boat that split in two
The people on board were part of a larger group. About 300 had left Myanmar’s Rakhine state two weeks earlier on one big vessel, according to a Malaysian maritime official. At sea the group was moved onto smaller boats. Langkawi’s police chief, Khairul Azhar Nuruddin, said the transfer happened last Thursday, and the small boat sank the same day. The second one, thought to hold about 230 passengers, has not been accounted for.
Of the 13 survivors, the BBC reported, 11 were Rohingya and two were Bangladeshi. The first body found, on Sunday, was a Rohingya woman, Malaysia’s state news agency Bernama said.
The search zone grew from 170 square nautical miles to 256 as the effort entered a second day, and the maritime authority expects air and sea patrols to run for seven days, with Thailand taking part as well.
Why people keep going
Officials told the BBC that many migrants pay more than $3,000 for a place on these boats. What they get is often a small, crowded craft with no fresh water or sanitation. The UN refugee agency counted more than 5,100 Rohingya who took to the water from Myanmar and Bangladesh from January to early November. Nearly 600 of them are reported dead or missing.
In the camps at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where 1.3 million Rohingya live, families were hunting for news. Mohammed Younus said his younger brother, 29-year-old Mohammed Ibrahim, had slipped away without a word to the family. “If I had known, I would never have let him go,” he told Reuters. Ibrahim has a wife, a young son and baby twin girls.
Naser Khan, a refugee in the same camps, said simply: “People are desperate.” In his telling, some would sooner risk dying on the water than waste away on land.
Malaysia does not recognise refugee status, though it remains a favoured destination. Police said the survivors have been detained while immigration offences are investigated.
Sources
- Seven dead after migrant boat sinks near Thai-Malaysian border (BBC)
- Malaysia searches for Rohingya after boat sinks, toll climbs to 21 (Reuters)
- At least 21 Rohingya refugees dead (The Independent)
