At least 27 Rohingya refugees feared dead after their boat sank Saturday during an attempt to escape Bhasan Char island.
"We have information that there were 41 people in the boat, 14 people were rescued alive and taken back to the camp, and the remaining 27 people are missing. The rescue operation continues," Bhasan Char camp in-charge, Sujit Kumar Chanda told The Business Post.
Sujit said the boat left the camp on Friday night and sank around 2:30am near Chattogram channel in the Bay of Bengal.
Quoting the survivors, the officer-in-charge of Bhasan Char, Rafiqul Islam, said many of the missing people are children.
Bangladesh have relocated nearly 2000 Rohingyas to Bhasan Char in a bid to decongest their camp in Cox’s Bazar. Many of them were caught by security officials after attempting to flee the camp.
Nearly 740,000 Rohingyas have fled Myanmar to Bangladesh since Aug. 25, 2017, following a military campaign in response to an alleged attack by a Rohingya insurgent group against checkposts of the security forces.
