More than 150 Rohingya have been rescued off the coast of Myanmar after their boat started taking on water, Myanmar’s military said.
Myanmar’s state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation sent two boats from an offshore operation to rescue the 154 people – 106 males and 48 females – after spotting their boat in trouble, the military said in a statement on Thursday.
It was not clear whether the vessel was the same boat carrying Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh that had been reported to be in trouble earlier this week in the waters of neighbouring Thailand.
Thailand’s navy spokesman Vice Admiral Pokkrong Monthatphalin said yesterday that crews had been sent to look for the boat in the Andaman Sea after it received the reports, but had found nothing.
The UNHCR said it did not have independent information on the boat reportedly experiencing engine troubles in Thai waters, but urged countries in the area to help.
In a report earlier this month, UNHCR reported that there had been a dramatic increase in the number of people attempting to cross the Andaman Sea this year.
Some 1,920 people, primarily Rohingya, made the crossing from either Myanmar or Bangladesh from January to November, compared to a total of 287 in 2021.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled from Myanmar to refugee camps in Bangladesh since August 2017, when the Myanmar military launched operations in response to attacks by a rebel group. — AP
