At least seven people have died after a boat carrying undocumented immigrants sank near the border between Thailand and Malaysia.
13 people were rescued, but hundreds more are missing. Most of them are Rohingya, who left Myanmar’s impoverished Rakhine state two weeks ago on larger ships and were separated into smaller boats, Malaysian maritime officials said.
The Malaysian Coast Guard said the capsized vessel was believed to have sunk near the resort island of Langkawi.
Rescue efforts continued for a second day and the search area expanded from 170 square nautical miles to 256 square nautical miles. Malaysian maritime authorities expect the search operation to last seven days.
The body found in the water on Sunday was that of a Rohingya woman, Malaysian state news agency Bernama reported.
Of the 13 rescued people, 11 were Rohingya and 2 were Bangladeshis.
About 70 people were on board the boat that sank, and the condition of the boats carrying the remaining migrants was “unclear,” Malaysian authorities said Monday.
The predominantly Muslim Rohingya are one of many ethnic minorities in the predominantly Buddhist country, but Myanmar’s government does not grant them citizenship.
Since August 2017, a deadly crackdown by the Myanmar military has forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee across the border into Bangladesh.
But conflict and poor living conditions in Bangladesh have forced some Rohingya to make the precarious journey aboard overcrowded ships to Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country seen as a safe haven in the region.
Officials said many of them would have paid more than $3,000 (£2,300) each for sea passage.
These boats are often small, cramped and lack basic facilities such as water and sanitation.
And they don’t always go to Malaysia. Some people die while stranded at sea, while others are detained or deported.
