Around 250 men, women and children are missing after a severely overcrowded trawler carrying Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals capsized in the Andaman Sea, the United Nations refugee and migration agencies confirmed on Tuesday. The vessel departed from Teknaf, a port town in southern Bangladesh, on 4 April, bound for Malaysia. It sank several days later due to heavy winds, rough seas and overcrowding, with preliminary reports suggesting roughly 280 people were aboard. Only nine survivors have been confirmed so far, rescued from the open sea by a Bangladesh Coast Guard vessel after they were spotted clinging to drums and logs near the Andaman Islands — a remote Indian archipelago in the eastern Indian Ocean. One survivor, Rafiqul Islam, 40, said traffickers had lured him onto the boat with promises of employment in Malaysia. He described being held in a lower compartment, suffering burns from spilled fuel oil, and floating for nearly 36 hours before being rescued.

The victims were most likely fleeing the sprawling refugee camps of Cox's Bazar in south-eastern Bangladesh, home to more than a million Rohingya who were driven out of Myanmar's western Rakhine state — particularly during a 2017 military offensive that forced at least 730,000 people across the border. Survivors documented killings, mass rape and arson; a UN fact-finding mission subsequently concluded the campaign had included "genocidal acts," a finding Myanmar's government rejects. Conditions in Rakhine have deteriorated further since 2021, with fierce fighting between Myanmar's military and the Arakan Army, an ethnic nationalist rebel group, dashing hopes of a safe return for refugees.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned that this disaster is not an isolated event. By late 2024, more than 5,300 Rohingya had already attempted the dangerous sea crossing that year, with at least 600 killed or missing. The agencies pointed to a convergence of factors driving people onto these rickety boats: persistent violence in Rakhine, squalid and overcrowded camp conditions in Bangladesh, cuts to international humanitarian aid, and severely limited access to education and livelihoods. Traffickers exploit this desperation, charging families for passage on vessels wholly unfit for open-sea voyages.

"This tragedy highlights the devastating human cost of protracted displacement and the continued absence of durable solutions for the Rohingya," UNHCR and IOM said in a joint statement, calling on the international community to increase and sustain funding for life-saving assistance in Bangladesh and to support host communities bearing the burden of one of the world's largest and longest-running refugee crises.