25,000 Rohingya, Bangladeshis trafficked in 3 months: UNHCR

A UNHCR report says some 25,000 Rohingyas and Bangladeshis boarded smugglers' boats from the Bay of Bengal between January and March this year -- almost double the number over the same period in 2014.

Based on interviews with those who have reached Thailand and Malaysia, 300 people are estimated to have died at sea while attempting maritime journeys from the Bay and 620 others  since October 2014 as a result of starvation, dehydration, and beatings by boat crews, the UN agency said in its report on irregular maritime movements in the South-East Asia.

“Between 40 to 60 percent of 25,000 people are thought to originate from Rakhine State, Myanmar, though many embarked on their maritime journeys from Bangladesh,” said the periodic report released today.

Considering the growing scale and severity of the boat exodus, UNHCR calls on countries in the region to work more closely together to counter the smuggling and trafficking of vulnerable people.

The increase of the irregular movements has been attributed to a variety of factors, including more Bangladeshis embarking on the maritime journey, and political developments in Myanmar, it said.

“Individuals who departed by sea have increasingly said they were able to embark on their journeys having only agreed to pay between US$ 90 to 370 for the entire passage or, in some cases, were told they could board for free and pay for the journey with earnings to be made in Malaysia”, the report claimed.

Rape by crew members and smugglers was also reported by female interviewees who were either themselves the victims or knew of other women or girls who had been raped, occasionally on board but more frequently and repeatedly in smugglers’ camps in Thailand.

The extensive network of and rising competition among smugglers manipulating the Bay route was evidenced by several individuals who said they were transferred between up to six boats before reaching shore.

Thai authorities have since unearthed mass graves with dozens of bodies believed to be those of smuggled Rohingyas and Bangladeshis.

Malaysian authorities apprehended a total of 137 Rohingya and Bangladeshi individuals -- some of whom had been chained by the leg and scalded with hot water-either shortly after they had entered overland from Thailand or, in one case, as dozens was disembarking from a fiberglass boat off Sungai Padang beach.