Rohingya Crisis: Boat Carrying Migrants Capsizes, At Least 12 Dead
Local Editor
An overcrowded boat carrying Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar capsized Monday in the Bay of Bengal near a Bangladeshi fishing village, killing 12 people, including six children, police said.
Survivors of the incident told local officials that up to 65 people were on board and almost half of them were children, local police official Sheikh Ashrafuzzaman said.
The capsizing occurred as the boat was approaching Shah Porir Dwip in Teknaf in Cox's Bazar district bordering Myanmar's Rakhine state.
He said villagers told police they recovered five bodies and at least 21 people survived.
Including Monday's capsizing, boat accidents claimed the lives of at least 184 Rohingya trying to reach Bangladesh.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar since Aug. 25, when the military launched a crackdown decried by the United Nations as ethnic cleansing.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
