Dhaka: The possible sinking of a boat with 180 Muslim-majority Rohingya on board will make 2022 one of the worst years for the community as refugees try to flee desperate conditions in camps in Bangladesh, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
Nearly one million Rohingya from Myanmar are living in crowded facilities in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, including tens of thousands who fled their home country after its military conducted a deadly crackdown in 2017.
In Buddhist-majority Myanmar, most Rohingya are denied citizenship and are seen as illegal immigrants from South Asia.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said over the weekend it feared that a boat, which started its journey from Bangladesh at the end of November was missing at sea, with all 180 on board presumed dead.
The UNHCR said the vessel, which was not seaworthy, may have started to crack in early December before losing contact. “We hope against hope that the 180 missing are still alive somewhere out there,” UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch told Reuters news agency.
The UNHCR estimates nearly 900 Rohingya died or went missing in the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal in 2013 and more than 700 in 2014. Several hundred are feared dead or missing at sea this year already, before the latest incident. “One of the worst years for dead and missing after 2013 and 2014,” Baloch said of 2022, adding the number of people trying to flee had returned to levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Trends show the numbers reaching back to 2020, when over 2,400 people attempted the risky sea crossings, with more than 200 people dead or missing.”
The number of Rohingya leaving Bangladesh in boats this year has jumped more than fivefold this year from a year earlier, rights groups estimate.
Baloch said it was not clear where exactly the boat with 180 on board went missing, nor whether the lifting of COVID restrictions in Southeast Asia, a favoured destination for the Rohingya, was leading to the rush of people.
