Two boats carrying over 500 Rohingya vanish at sea

Two boats carrying roughly 530 Rohingya asylum seekers departed from Myanmar's Rakhine state on June 29 and have disappeared without a trace. It is highly likely that both vessels capsized, as the monsoon season has begun, seas are rough, and the boats—typically old fishing trawlers converted to carry maximum passengers—are barely seaworthy with unreliable engines. Half of those on board may have been women and children, but the exact fate will likely never be known.

Chris Lewa, who runs the Arakan Project advocating for Rohingya rights, has been trying to reconstruct what happened. This has been extremely difficult; she no longer has contacts in Sittwe or in Sin Tet Maw, the Arakan Army-controlled village where the boats departed. However, through other sources, she is confident both boats left on June 29, one in the morning and the other later that day. They were reportedly heading for Myanmar's southern coast, where passengers would be transferred to smaller boats and brought ashore. From there, they would be transported by road through transit camps in Thailand to the Malaysian border.

Normally, families expect to hear from relatives within a week or ten days. Nearly three weeks later, there has been no communication. Bangladeshi authorities recovered the body of one woman washed ashore. Fishermen working between the Irrawaddy delta and Mon state found several more bodies nine days after the boats left. Lewa believes this indicates the boats capsized—one hours after departure, the other after several days at sea.

Over a million Rohingya live in overcrowded camps in southern Bangladesh, where aid is dwindling, jobs are scarce, and organized crime runs freely. They are not allowed to leave. An estimated 600,000 Rohingya remain in Rakhine state, a quarter confined to miserable IDP camps, the rest living in precarious communities caught between warring factions. The military junta has subjected them to forced conscription, while the Arakan Army, which claims to represent ethnic Rakhine, distrusts Rohingya and is accused of serious human rights abuses.

Given these dire conditions, the only hope for many Rohingya is to reach another country. Malaysia, which already hosts 200,000 Rohingya, is the most attractive destination. This has created a lucrative business for people smugglers, who charge between $2,000 and $4,000 per person. Those whose families fail to pay are detained and beaten, with videos of their suffering sent to coerce payment.

The UN has called for safer routes for Rohingya to leave, but no country in the region is willing to accept them, and no government has made their journeys any easier.