UNHCR: 569 Rohingya Died at Sea in 2023, Highest in Nine Years

01/25/2024

Some 569 Rohingya people died or went missing at sea last year—the most since 2014—as they embarked on dangerous boat journeys to Southeast Asia, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said nearly 4,500 Rohingya people took boats across the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal in 2023, fleeing crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh or persecution in their native Myanmar.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya live in crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh after a brutal crackdown by the Myanmar military in 2017 that is the subject of a genocide case at the International Court of Justice. Those who remain in Myanmar, where the military seized power in a coup nearly three years ago, are mainly confined to camps in their native Rakhine State with strict curbs on their movement and daily lives.

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