India's coast guard has found a stranded boat with Rohingya refugees from Myanmar stranded in the Andaman Sea and provided assistance to the passengers, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said on Thursday
NEW DELHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th February, 2021) India's coast guard has found a stranded boat with Rohingya refugees from Myanmar stranded in the Andaman Sea and provided assistance to the passengers, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the International Organization for Migration called on countries in the region to immediately rescue Rohingya refugees adrift on their boat.
"When we learned of the boat in distress, we immediately dispatched two coast guard ships to provide food, water and medical assistance to the occupants of the boat. Seven of them were administered IV fluids," Srivastava said at a briefing.
According to the official, the boat sailed from Bangladesh's port of Cox's Bazar on February 11 and remained stranded after an engine failure on February 15. The vessel was carrying 26 men and 64 women, including five boys and eight girls. Eight people are said to have died during the stranding due to severe conditions.
"We understand that around 47 of the occupants of the boat are in possession of ID cards issued to them by UNHCR office in Bangladesh stating that they are displaced Myanmar nationals and person of concern to UNHCR registered by the Government of Bangladesh. We are in discussions with the Government of Bangladesh to ensure their safe and secure repatriation," the spokesman concluded.
The Rohingya are a minority Muslim group considered autochthonous to Myanmar's Rakhine state. In 2017, the military of the Buddhist-majority state targeted the Rohingya in an unprecedented violence campaign, forcing more than 700,000 members of the community across the border to Bangladesh as refugees.
These events unfolded during the rule of Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, whom the military has now overthrown in a coup. On February 1, the military arrested Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior members of the newly-elected government, accusing them of rigging the November elections. This triggered mass violent protests that remain ongoing.
