PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia: Hundreds of people remained missing after a boat carrying about 300 migrants from Myanmar capsized near the maritime border between Thailand and Malaysia, Malaysian authorities said on Sunday.
Ten survivors were rescued and one body was recovered, state officials and media said.
First Admiral Romli Mustafa, director of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency for the northern states of Kedah and Perlis, said the vessel left Buthidaung in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and sank three days ago.
He told reporters more victims might still be found at sea as search-and-rescue teams continued operations.
Kedah police chief Adzli Abu Shah, quoted by state news agency Bernama, said three Myanmar men, two Rohingya men and one Bangladeshi man were among those rescued. Bernama said the recovered body was that of a Rohingya woman.
Where the boat sank
Officials said the accident likely occurred close to Thailand’s Tarutao Island, just north of Langkawi, although the exact timing and precise location were not yet confirmed.
Malaysian authorities warned that the vessel may have capsized in Thai waters before survivors drifted into Malaysian search areas.
Police said the group initially boarded a larger vessel but were told to transfer into three smaller boats — each carrying roughly 100 people — as they neared the Malaysian coast to evade authorities.
The fate of the other two boats remains unknown and is the focus of the ongoing search.
Who was on board
Survivors and officials identified several of those rescued as Rohingya, a mostly Muslim minority that has fled persecution in Myanmar for years.
The Rohingya are frequently victims of trafficking networks that exploit dangerous sea routes to reach Malaysia and Indonesia.
Malaysia has in the past accepted Rohingya on humanitarian grounds but seeks to limit irregular maritime arrivals.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates there are about 117,670 registered Rohingya refugees in Malaysia — roughly 59 percent of the country’s registered refugee population, according to UNHCR figures cited by authorities.
Malaysian officials warned that cross-border smuggling syndicates are increasingly active in the region and said investigations would probe the circumstances leading to the capsize.
Authorities have not yet given a final tally of missing people, but described the number as running into the hundreds.
