The United Nations warned Thursday that more than 500 people were feared dead following reports of two large shipwrecks off Myanmar since late June.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration and its refugee agency UNHCR voiced alarm in a joint statement at reports “that two boats carrying more than 500 people may have capsized off the coast of Myanmar in recent days”.
Preliminary information indicated that the two vessels in question departed from war-torn Myanmar’s Rakhine State in late June, with mainly members of the country’s mostly Muslim Rohingya minority onboard, the statement said.
Some had reportedly travelled from the huge camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, where more than a million Rohingya refugees who have fled from Rakhine live in squalid conditions.
The statement said that one boat, believed to have been carrying around 250 people, lost contact shortly after departure.
A second boat, reportedly carrying some 280 people, is meanwhile believed to have sunk off Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady coast on July 8.
“While the incidents and casualty figures have yet to be officially confirmed, UNHCR and IOM are gravely concerned by the potentially devastating loss of life,” the statement said.
The UN agencies highlighted that the journeys “took place outside the regular sailing season, when maritime conditions are typically more hazardous”.
“Recent torrential rain and flooding across the region have further increased the risks associated with such sea movements.”
The statement cautioned that “if verified, this tragedy would add to the nearly 300 people reported to be missing or to have lost their lives in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal so far this year, including Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals”.