Survivor of refugee boat sinking 'swam for twenty hours' before rescue

A man who survived after a refugee boat sank while fleeing Burma for Bangladesh said he swam for twenty hours before being picked up by a fishing boat. Above, a Muslim Rohingya man rest on his boat in a Burmese refugee camp. Source: AFP

 

A SURVIVOR from a boat that sank off Bangladesh while carrying Rohingya refugees to Malaysia told how he had been rescued by a passing fishing boat after swimming towards land for 20 hours.

As many as 135 passengers, mostly Muslim Rohingya refugees who had fled unrest in neighbouring Burma, are believed to have drowned on October 28 when their boat went down off the Bay of Bengal.

Only around half a dozen made it to safety.

Talking to AFP by phone from his home village of Sabrang in Bangladesh's southeastern Cox's Bazaar district, 24-year old Abu Bakar told how he had paid 20,000 taka ($250) for a place on the ramshackle vessel.

The boat had set sail after midnight in a bid to evade detection and had only been sailing for around four hours when it went down in a matter of minutes after hitting rough seas.

Mr Bakar said he found himself and five others, floating in the water in the dark, after disaster struck.

"Everyone was crying and praying to Allah as the boat was bobbing heavily in the water and it sank quickly." said Mr Bakar.

"There was no sign of the boat (after it sank) and I can't say what happened to the other passengers.

"After sunrise we tried to work out where the Bangladesh coast was and started to swim eastwards.

"We swam at least 20 hours - those hours were the longest in my life.

"It was after midnight and I was hungry, thirsty, totally exhausted and was thinking that my life was at an end, when a Bangladeshi fishing boat rescued us."

Most were Rohingyas who had fled Burma and were hoping to start a new life in relatively prosperous Malaysia. Mr Bakar himself is a Bangladeshi labourer who also wanted to earn more money abroad.

He said the middlemen whom he had paid for a berth had promised to get him on much larger vessel.

"The brokers told us that we would be taken to Malaysia by a big ship. But actually we were crammed into a relatively larger wooden fishing boat which was anchored far from the shore," Mr Bakar said.

Mr Bakar said three companions from his village were among those who drowned.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya have fled Burma in past decades to escape persecution, often heading to neighbouring Bangladesh, and recent unrest has triggered another exodus.

Since the unrest erupted, Bangladesh has been turning away boatloads of fleeing Rohingya. The policy has been criticised by the United Nations but Bangladesh said it was already burdened with an estimated 300,000 Rohingya.

Burma's 800,000 stateless Rohingya, described by the United Nations as among the world's most persecuted minorities, are seen by the government and many Burmese as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.