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By Mihar Dias November 2025
The sea off Langkawi has claimed many lives, but few stories are as tragic, or as quietly repeated, as that of the Rohingya. https://newswav.com/A2511_oUmLjG?s=A_5VDnfFm&language=en
Once again, a boat full of desperate souls—men, women, and children—has vanished between borders, swallowed by the waters that were supposed to bring hope. https://newswav.com/A2511_oUmLjG?s=A_5VDnfFm&language=en
Hundreds are missing, one body recovered, ten miraculously found alive. The rest—well, the sea is rarely kind enough to return the dead.
This was not the first time a vessel sank somewhere between Buthidaung and Langkawi. It will not be the last. And that, perhaps, is the greatest tragedy of all.https://newswav.com/A2511_oUmLjG?s=A_5VDnfFm&language=en
For years now, the Rohingya have been adrift—not just at sea, but in history itself. They are a people who exist without a nation, without papers, without safety.
In Myanmar, they are treated as invaders. In Bangladesh, as burdens. In Malaysia, as ghosts who arrive by night. In the eyes of the world, they are the “crisis” that everyone acknowledges but no one truly claims responsibility for.
We mourn the lost each time the waves bring up another headline, another count of the drowned. But between the headlines, what changes?
The boat still sails, the smugglers still profit, and the world still looks away, because these are not “our people.”
How long can we keep pretending that borders are more sacred than lives?
It’s easy to blame the traffickers, or the poor souls who risk their lives to flee. But desperation has no luxury of choice. No mother climbs into a leaking wooden boat in the dead of night unless the land behind her is burning, and the land ahead—no matter how uncertain—offers at least the dream of survival.
When will these deaths ever end?
Perhaps only when the world finds its conscience again. When governments stop treating human beings as paperwork. When compassion stops being a political inconvenience.
For now, all we can do is grieve—grieve for the nameless Rohingya woman whose body was pulled from the sea, for the children who may never be found, and for a world that continues to fail them.
The sea has no borders. It has no race, no religion, no nationality. It welcomes the living and keeps the dead.
So, perhaps, until we learn to see humanity in one another beyond flags and faiths, the sea will keep reminding us—again and again—that indifference, too, can drown.
Mihar Dias (mihardias@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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