Several killed as Bangladesh-bound boat sinks off Myanmar

A boat carrying 70 people capsized on Sunday off western Myanmar, an aid worker said. Only eight survivors have been found.

The boat was in the Bay of Bengal and headed for Bangladesh when it went down early Sunday, said Abdul Melik, who works for the humanitarian organisation Action Against Hunger.

The incident comes after the United Nations warned that an annual and often deadly exodus of desperate people from Myanmar’s Rakhine State appears to have begun. The exodus usually kicks off in November, when seas begin to calm.

As many as 1,500 people have fled in the last week, Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the U.N. High commission for Refugees, said at a press briefing on Saturday in Geneva.

In Sunday’s incident, Mr. Melik said the wooden boat carrying at least 70 Rohingya Muslims from Ohn Taw Gyi village left at around 3 a.m. and broke apart about four hours later. Women, children and babies were among those on board.

Family members and friends were scouring the Bay of Bengal and coastlines for survivors, but so far only eight survivors have been found, he said.

It was not immediately clear whether any bodies had been recovered.

Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist nation of 60 million, has been gripped by sectarian violence in the last 18 months, leaving more than 240 people dead and causing 250,000 to flee from their homes. Most of the victims have been Rohingya, a long persecuted Muslim minority in the country, with Buddhist mobs chasing them down with machetes, iron chains and bamboo clubs.

The U.N. says it expects this year’s exodus to be on one of the biggest on record because of the violence.