DHAKA: Families were frantically searching for news of their relatives on Wednesday after a boat carrying about 280 Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi migrants capsized in the Andaman Sea earlier this month.
Bangladesh police said on Wednesday they had arrested six people on suspicion of human trafficking over the incident.
“We are investigating each individual’s liability in the tragic incident,” Saiful Islam, officer-in-charge of Teknaf police station, said.
The boat, which left the southern Bangladeshi port of Teknaf on April 4 and was on its way to Malaysia, sank due to heavy winds, rough seas and overcrowding, according to the United Nations.
Bangladeshi authorities said nine people had been rescued. One survivor said the boat sank nearly 10 days ago, casting gloom over the fate of the missing.
“I now have 70-80 photos on my mobile phone from people asking for updates on the victims,” 40-year-old Rafiqul Islam, one of the survivors, said on Wednesday.
Islam, who sustained burn injuries as oil spilled from the trawler, said he was lured by traffickers who promised him a job in Malaysia. The Rohingya on board the boat were likely leaving huge camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, where more than a million refugees forced to flee war-torn Myanmar’s Rakhine state live in squalid conditions.
Rakhine state has been the scene of fierce fighting between the military and the Arakan Army, an ethnic minority rebel group.
The Rohingya undertake perilous sea journeys every year in search of better living conditions, travelling aboard rickety boats often operated by trafficking networks.
Risking lives
At the Kutupalong Rohingya camp, Jasim Uddin, 34, said he had travelled to Rafiqul Islam’s home after losing contact with his brother.
“My brother paid 350,000 taka ($2,850) for the trip to Malaysia to a contractor who is now avoiding us,” he said. “I showed my brother’s photo to Islam, and he confirmed that he had seen him on the boat.”
Rohingya representatives warned that worsening poverty and food aid cuts were likely to drive more refugees to undertake dangerous sea travel.
Since April 1, the UN World Food Programme has reduced monthly assistance for large sections of the over one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
“Human trafficking has never stopped, and in the near future it will escalate without a doubt as the food aid cuts remain in place,” Sayed Ullah, president of the United Council of Rohingya, said.
“Desperate people will risk their lives to support their families.” The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the latest incident reflected the “dire consequences of protracted displacement and the absence of durable solutions for the Rohingya”.
Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2026
