Death toll rises to 23 after boat carrying Rohingya refugees capsizes

The bodies of another nine refugees have washed up in Bangladesh after an overloaded boat carrying scores of desperate Rohingya sank in rough seas, police said on Tuesday, taking the death toll to at least 23.

Eight bodies were found on the banks of the Naf river, which separates Bangladesh from Myanmar, and another was found kilometres away on the island of St Martin.

More than half of the victims in the latest disaster were children, said Mian Uddin, police chief for the border town of Teknaf.

The incident was the latest tragedy to strike those fleeing violence in Myanmar.

The boat was carrying between 60 and 100 people when it overturned and sank near Shah Porir Dwip, on the southern tip of Bangladesh on Sunday night, authorities in Bangladesh said.

The coast guard said the boat sank near the coastal village of Galachar at around 1600 GMT (10:00 pm).

Local media quoted a survivor as saying the vessel capsized due to high waves and bad weather.

Widespread malnutrition 

Malnutrition is widespread amongst the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, aid groups said on Sunday.

Painfully thin children were being measured for height at refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, as women are being shown how to prepare meals for their malnourished children.

"Nearly 90 percent of them (Rohingya refugees) has informed us that they are living on one meal per day," said Sakil Faizullah, communications manager for UN children's agency UNICEF.

"By this malnutrition programme, we're now treating 3,400 severely acute malnourished children. And also we have mental health components, so by this mental health component we're going to cover 30,000 persons under these mental health services," said Muhammad Mehedi, field co-cordinator for Action Against Hunger.

"And still now we provide service to 8,400 traumatised children and mothers," said Mehedi.

More than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims are now living in camps in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district.

Dangerous journey

Nearly 520,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Rakhine state for Bangladesh since late August, many walking for days through thick jungle before making the perilous boat journey across the Naf river.

Around 150 Rohingya, many of them children, have drowned while trying to reach Bangladesh in small, rickety fishing boats that coastguards say are woefully inadequate for the rough seas.

It is feared that more than 60 Rohingya refugees died last week after a boat carrying them from Myanmar capsized in rough weather in the Bay of Bengal just off the Bangladesh coast.

The bodies of 23 people were retrieved, but the death toll was expected to surge, with many of the dead likely to be young children too weak to swim through the churning water.

Charges of ethnic cleansing

The refugee crisis erupted after Rohingya militant raids on Myanmar police posts on August 25 prompted a brutal military backlash.

The United Nations has said the army campaign could amount to “ethnic cleansing” while Myanmar military leaders have blamed the unrest on the Rohingya.

The government of Buddhist-majority Myanmar refuses to recognise the Rohingya as a distinct ethnic group and considers them illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

While the worst of the violence appears to have abated, insecurity, food shortages and tensions with Buddhist neighbours are still driving thousands of Rohingya to make the arduous trek to Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has made the journey even more difficult with a clampdown on boats running refugees across the Naf river.

Authorities have destroyed at least 30 wooden fishing vessels whose captains are accused of smuggling Rohingya and illegal drugs into the country.

Gangs of boat owners, crew and fishermen have been charging the fleeing Rohingya upwards of $250 for the two-hour journey that normally costs no more than $5.