KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia ended its search Monday for migrants who went missing after their boat capsized 11 days ago, with searchers recovering 36 bodies after the sinking off the Thai-Malaysian coast.
Fourteen survivors were also rescued since the shipwreck on November 6, near Thailand’s Tarutao island while trying to reach Malaysia.
Officials said the vessel was carrying some 70 undocumented migrants, mostly from Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya community.
“The search-and-rescue operation will be called off at 6:30 p.m. (1030 GMT) today (Monday),” said Zainudin Mohd Zuki, deputy operations director of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) in the northern states of Kedah and Perlis.
“We have examined all factors, including the size of the area, assets deployment, duration of the operation and information about the incident.
“However, if there are any new leads or indications, we will reassess and reactivate the operation to search for the remaining missing victims,” Zainudin said at a news conference.
Malaysian rescuers have recovered 29 bodies, while their Thai counterparts have found seven in recent days.
“As of Monday, the Malaysian and Thai authorities found 36 bodies, cumulatively,” Romli Mustafa, MMEA’s director in Kedah and Perlis, told AFP.
The 14 survivors — mainly Rohingya and Bangladeshi citizens — were all found in Malaysian waters since operations began on November 8, with Monday marking the 10th day of the search.
At least 19 vessels and more than 300 personnel searched an area of around 1,750 square nautical miles, roughly eight times the size of Singapore.
The passengers on the capsized boat were likely part of a larger group of some 300 people who had left Myanmar two weeks ago, and were split between at least two vessels, officials say.
Malaysian police reported the second vessel as missing.
Relatively affluent Malaysia is home to millions of migrants from poorer parts of Asia, many of them undocumented, working in industries including construction and agriculture.
But sea crossings, facilitated by human trafficking syndicates, are hazardous and often lead to overloaded boats capsizing.
The Rohingya have been persecuted in Myanmar for decades, and thousands risk their lives every year to flee repression and civil war, often aboard makeshift boats.
More than 5,300 Rohingya fled Bangladesh and Myanmar by sea between January and early November, with more than 600 reported dead or missing, the United Nations Refugee Agency and International Organization for Migration said last week.
Migrant shipwreck leaves 36 dead as Malaysia ends search
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Migrant shipwreck leaves 36 dead as Malaysia ends search
- Malaysia ended its search Monday for migrants who went missing after their boat capsized 11 days ago, with searchers recovering 36 bodies after the sinking off the Thai-Malaysian coast
WHO chief says reasons US gave for withdrawing ‘untrue’
- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a joint statement Thursday that Washington had formally withdrawn from the WHO
- And in a post on X, Tedros added: “Unfortunately, the reasons cited for the US decision to withdraw from WHO are untrue”
GENEVA: The head of the UN’s health agency on Saturday pushed back against Washington’s stated reasons for withdrawing from the World Health Organization, dismissing US criticism of the WHO as “untrue.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that US announcement this week that it had formally withdrawn from the WHO “makes both the US and the world less safe.”
And in a post on X, he added: “Unfortunately, the reasons cited for the US decision to withdraw from WHO are untrue.”
He insisted: “WHO has always engaged with the US, and all Member States, with full respect for their sovereignty.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a joint statement Thursday that Washington had formally withdrawn from the WHO.
They accused the agency, of numerous “failures during the Covid-19 pandemic” and of acting “repeatedly against the interests of the United States.”
The WHO has not yet confirmed that the US withdrawal has taken effect.
- ‘Trashed and tarnished’ -
The two US officials said the WHO had “trashed and tarnished” the United States, and had compromised its independence.
“The reverse is true,” the WHO said in a statement.
“As we do with every Member State, WHO has always sought to engage with the United States in good faith.”
The agency strenuously rejected the accusation from Rubio and Kennedy that its Covid response had “obstructed the timely and accurate sharing of critical information that could have saved American lives and then concealed those failures.”
Kennedy also suggested in a video posted to X Friday that the WHO was responsible for “the Americans who died alone in nursing homes (and) the small businesses that were destroyed by reckless mandates” to wear masks and get vaccinated.
The US withdrawal, he insisted, was about “protecting American sovereignty, and putting US public health back in the hands of the American people.”
Tedros warned on X that the statement “contains inaccurate information.”
“Throughout the pandemic, WHO acted quickly, shared all information it had rapidly and transparently with the world, and advised Member States on the basis of the best available evidence,” the agency said.
“WHO recommended the use of masks, vaccines and physical distancing, but at no stage recommended mask mandates, vaccine mandates or lockdowns,” it added.
“We supported sovereign governments to make decisions they believed were in the best interests of their people, but the decisions were theirs.”
- Withdrawal ‘raises issues’ -
The row came as Washington struggled to dislodge itself from the WHO, a year after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to that effect.
The one-year withdrawal process reached completion on Thursday, but Kennedy and Rubio regretted in their statement that the UN health agency had “not approved our withdrawal and, in fact, claims that we owe it compensation.”
WHO has highlighted that when Washington joined the organization in 1948, it reserved the right to withdraw, as long as it gave one year’s notice and had met “its financial obligations to the organization in full for the current fiscal year.”
But Washington has not paid its 2024 or 2025 dues, and is behind around $260 million.
“The notification of withdrawal raises issues,” WHO said Saturday, adding that the topic would be examined during WHO’s Executive Board meeting next month and by the annual World Health Assembly meeting in May.
“We hope the US will return to active participation in WHO in the future,” Tedros said Saturday.
“Meanwhile, WHO remains steadfastly committed to working with all countries in pursuit of its core mission and constitutional mandate: the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right for all people.”
