Staff Reporter :
About 53,000 Bangladeshi and Burmese nationals left their countries for Thailand and Malaysia through the sea routes of Bay of Bengal this year as illegal migration through the Bay reached its peak in the recent times, said a report of UNHCR.
The majority are stateless Rohingya Muslims, fleeing ethnic tensions in Myanmar or poor prospects in Bangladesh, as well as Bangladeshis looking for a better life, the UNHCR said in the report.
Of the total, about 540 people have reportedly died during the journey at sea on smuggling boats for beatings, starvation or dehydration. Their bodies were thrown overboard, said the UN refugee agency in the report published on Friday.
It has found that more people are risking their lives on smugglers’ boats in South-East Asia despite the prospect of violence en route.
Some 50,000 of these left from the Bangladesh-Myanmar border area, 15 percent more than those left between January and November last year, and more than triple the estimated number of departures during the same period in 2012.
Almost half – 21,000 – of these passengers left the border area in the last two months, a 37 percent increase compared to October and November 2013, the UNHCR said.
The remaining 3,000 came from the Sittwe area of Myanmar.
“Several individuals reported incidents of rape and some said they had been trafficked, though the coercive conditions of travel often blurred the distinction between smuggling and trafficking,” the report said.
Rohingya Muslims, viewed by the UN as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities, have long fled discrimination and repression in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar.
But the flow has accelerated into a growing exodus two years after deadly clashes erupted between Buddhists and Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, activists say.
The conditions on board the boats are often dire, with water, food and space in short supply, the report said.
Passengers are sometimes on board for weeks if the smugglers – armed crew from Thailand and Myanmar – take their time and try to pick up additional passengers along the coast.
After interviewing migrants who made the journey, the UNHCR estimated that 540 people died along the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea route in 2014.
“Deaths were attributed to severe beatings by the crew, lack of food and water, illness, and heat,” it said. Some passengers jumped into the water in desperation.
On arrival, things were often not much better.
Smugglers demand only a small fee before departure but then refuse to release the migrants until their families pay more, often holding them for months in brutal camps.
With each journey costing between $1,600 (1,300 euros) and $2,400, the human smuggling trade along the route was estimated to generate annual revenues of $100 million.
In total, about 120,000 people have left from the border area since January 2012.
Hundreds of the arrivals have been arrested by the authorities in Thailand and Malaysia, some claiming refugee status and others being deported, while others continued their journey onto Indonesia or Australia.
Earlier, the UN agency said, over 86,000 people have left Bay of Bengal on trafficker boats since June 2012 to 2013 from Myanmar and Bangladesh, headed for jobs in Malaysia.
“This includes more than 16,000 people in the second half of 2012, 55,000 in 2013 and nearly 15,000 between January and April this year. The majority of them are Rohingyas, although anecdotally the proportion of Bangladeshis has grown this year,” it said.
The large trawlers from Malaysia are taking these people from sea near Teknaf and St Martin, they added.
The illegal migrants are reaching deep sea (Bay of Bengal) through the coasts at Sitakunda, Kumira, Chakaria, Maheshkhali, Ukhia and Ramu, Teknaf.
