Sixty Rohingya are believed to have died on an overcrowded boat stranded in the Bay of Bengal for nearly two months, an official said after hundreds of “starving” people were rescued from the vessel.
The boat had tried to reach Thailand and Malaysia, some of the nearly 400 people rescued from the trawler told the Bangladesh coastguard.
Nearly 250 women and children were among those rescued off Bangladesh’s southeastern coast.
Nearly a million Rohingya live in squalid camps near Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar after fleeing a military offensive in 2017. Thousands try every year to reach other countries on crowded rickety boats.
The Bangladesh coast guard said that other survivors had told them that 32 people died on board and their bodies dumped in the sea, and that the boat had tried to enter Malaysia and Thailand.
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