DHAKA: At least three people died and 17 were missing after a boat carrying scores of people mostly Rohingya refugees capsized in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district, some 400 km southeast of the capital Dhaka, on Tuesday morning, an official said.
“We’ve recovered three bodies,“ Lieutenant Commander Ashiq Ahmed of the Bangladesh Coast Guard told Xinhua.
“We’ve come to know that the boat carrying some 65 people left Teknaf at about 5.00 am local time Tuesday,“ he said.
He said the boat sank off the coast of Bangladesh due to rough sea conditions.
A survivor informed rescuers that they were trying to go to Malaysia illegally, said the coast guard official.
He said 45 people, including four Bangladeshis and 41 Rohingya refugees, were rescued.
A search and rescue operation was underway for some 17 missing persons, he said.
Nearly 1 million Rohingya people from Myanmar’s Rakhine state are now living in dozens of camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district and they often try to go abroad illegally.-Bernama
