By IANS
Dhaka : One person has died and many have gone missing after three Bangladesh boats carrying illegal migrants believed to be heading for Malaysia capsized in the Bay of Bengal.
A trawler and two boats sank off Shah Parir Dwip in Teknaf close to Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar Sunday as they were overloaded with an estimated 230 people on board, reported the Daily Star.
Most of the passengers are believed to have been Rohingyas, who are Muslim tribals of Myanmar. The report, however, did not mention their nationality. A large number of Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution by the military government in Myanmar.
According to the newspaper, the trawler was the first to overturn. The panicking passengers then swam to the two boats causing them to sink too.
Officer-in-Charge (OC) of the Teknaf Police Station said they had recovered the body of one man, aged around 35.
The newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying that a 10-member syndicate, comprising people from Cox’s Bazar, Teknaf and neighbouring Myanmar have long been involved in trafficking people from Shahpari Island and different points near Cox’s Bazar.
Boatpeople from Bangladesh is a recurring story, with Thailand, Malaysia and some other Southeast Asian countries being the destinations of workers seeking to enter them illegally.
Many of them are duped by recruiting agents, given fake passports and travel documents and pushed into different countries.
Malaysia, that has agreed to take 300,000 Bangladeshi workers and has already taken 160,000, recently banned further imports after duped workers staged demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur and one of them died.