COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh: At least nine Rohingya were missing after a boat carrying them capsized in the Naf, a shared waterway between Bangladesh and Myanmar, police said Friday.
The Rohingya were believed to be fleeing ongoing fighting in Myanmar's Rakhine state between the military and the Arakan Army, an ethnic minority rebel group.
Local Bangladeshi fishermen rescued 18 men after they spotted the sinking boat, officials said. The men were turned over to the Border Guard Bangladesh.
"Some nine individuals are still missing," Saiful Islam, the police officer in charge of Teknaf district, told AFP.
Rashid Ahmed, a local resident, said the boat lost control and sank due to strong currents and rough waves.
"Nearby trawlers rushed to the spot and rescued people from the sinking boat. Of the 18 rescued, four were boatmen and their associates," Ahmed told AFP.
The mostly Muslim Rohingya have been persecuted in Myanmar for decades, with many escaping to Bangladesh after the 2017 military clampdown.
Conditions in Rakhine state -- a slice of coastal Myanmar bordering Bangladesh -- have deteriorated during Myanmar's civil war, triggered by a 2021 coup deposing the democratic government.
Huge numbers of the stateless Rohingya community live in squalid relief camps in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar.
Successive aid cuts have caused severe hardship among Rohingya in the overcrowded settlements, where many rely on aid and suffer from rampant malnutrition.
The Rohingya undertake perilous sea journeys every year in search of better living conditions, travelling aboard rickety boats often operated by trafficking networks.
More than 5,000 Rohingya refugees have lost their lives during these dangerous sea journeys over a decade, according to the UN.
