YANGON: Witnesses to a boat capsize that left some 20 people dead, including children, say the victims were from the Rohingya Muslim minority and blamed the tragedy on travel restrictions that forced them to journey by sea.
At least 21 people, including nine children, died after a packed boat capsized in choppy waters on Tuesday as it approached the Rakhine state capital of Sittwe, according to the United Nations.
Most of the passengers were inhabitants of Sin Tet Maw, in Paukaw township, a camp for Rohingya Muslim minority members forced from their homes by bouts of communal violence.
“It (the boat accident) happened because of unsafe transport ... we cannot use direct transport (overland) to Sittwe to buy goods or medicine,” Rohingya activist, Kyaw Hla Aung, said from Sittwe.
The boat’s passengers had received special permission to travel to the market in Sittwe from Paukaw – a journey through the mouth of a wide river that skirts around the coast to the capital.
Another Rohingya man, Tin Hla, who also lives in the camp of 1,500 people, said his son was unaccounted for among the boat passengers, adding that he fears the worst for and had travelled to Sittwe to find his body.
Photographs showed locals carrying the dead and injured to shore on makeshift gurneys.
More than 100,000 Rohingya have been forced to live in apartheid-like conditions since unrest between Buddhists and Muslims left hundreds dead in 2012. Their movement and access to services is severely restricted. — AFP
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