Staff Reporter :Bangladesh Navy rescued about 614 people from a trawler near the coast of Cox’s Bazar in the Bay of Bengal on Monday. The Navy also seized the engine-run trawler. The captured people included crew members, human traffickers and trafficking victims en route to Malaysia illegally. Most of the arrested men were Bangladeshis. Lieutenant Commander Mostafa Kamal, the Station Commander of Bangladesh Navy at St Martin’s Island, said that a war ship of the Navy “Durjoy” conducted operation into the trawler about 50 nautical miles from the St. Martin at around 3:00 pm on Monday.The trawler and the passengers will be brought back to the Island on Tuesday morning, he said. The passengers from Bangladesh went to the sea near Myanmar border and boarded on the trawler carrying Myanmar Flag in order to go to Malaysia in illegal way. On suspicion, the Navy ship searched the trawler and seized it, he said.This kind of illegal voyages by trawlers are often taking place. Some 78 people were rescued from a forest of Thailand in the recent time. Of them, majority people are from Bangladesh.United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says, about 15,000 people are smuggled from Bangladesh every year. Most of them are women and children.
