According to the United Nations refugee agency, 569 Rohingya persons perished or went missing at sea last year, the highest number since 2014, while traveling by boat to Southeast Asia.
In 2023, some 4,500 Rohingya people crossed the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal in boats to escape overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh or persecution in Myanmar, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Following a violent crackdown by the Myanmar military in 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are now living in cramped refugee camps in Bangladesh.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is currently considering a genocide complaint involving this group.
The majority of those who are still in Myanmar, where the military overthrew the government over three years ago, are imprisoned in camps in their home state of Rakhine, where their everyday freedoms are severely restricted.
In 2023, some 4,500 Rohingya people crossed the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal in boats to escape overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh or persecution in Myanmar, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
More than 1,500 Rohingya landed on the northern tip of Indonesia’s Sumatra island on barely seaworthy wooden boats in November and December last year, a period when waters are generally calmer.
But while people there have previously welcomed the refugees, this time villagers and the military pushed boats back out to sea and told their passengers they could not come ashore despite the dreadful conditions on board.
In one incident, some 200 people were feared to have drowned after their boat sank in the Andaman Sea. Others remained at sea for days longer as they sought a place to land.
The UNHCR urged governments to take steps to avoid a repeat of such tragedies.
Many Rohingya who fled Bangladesh and Myanmar seek to reach Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country that now hosts almost 108,000 Rohingya refugees.
Malaysia, like Indonesia, is not a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees, therefore individuals who live there are deemed unauthorised migrants and face harassment, incarceration, or deportation.
