Arakan News Agency | Exclusive
A total of 81 Rohingya refugees have survived from two boats that sank during May, out of 514 people on board, in what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has described as the deadliest maritime disaster of 2025.
Reports indicate that despite surviving drowning, the survivors now face a grim fate, as they are being detained by Myanmar’s military council authorities in Kyaikmaraw Prison, located in Mon State, Myanmar.
Arakan News Agency was able to contact some of the families of the survivors. According to their accounts, the detainees include women and children and are being held in inhumane conditions inside the prison.
Among the detainees is an entire family from “Rok New Taung” village in Buthidaung Township, Arakan State, western Myanmar. The family includes four children aged between 5 and 12.
The UNHCR has expressed deep concern over reports that approximately 427 Rohingya drowned in two tragic incidents off Myanmar’s coast this May.
The first boat, carrying 267 people most from Cox’s Bazar camps in Bangladesh and the rest from Arakan State sank on May 9. Only 66 Rohingya survived.
The second boat, carrying 247 individuals, sank on May 10. Only 21 survivors were found. A third boat, carrying 188 Rohingya, was intercepted on May 14 while attempting to leave Myanmar.
This tragedy highlights the dire conditions faced by the Rohingya, who continue to risk death at sea. Similar incidents have occurred recently, including the sinking of a boat off the coast of Teknaf in March, which had 50 passengers on board. Bangladeshi border guards and local fishermen managed to rescue 25 of them.
Earlier, 73 Rohingya refugees drowned in the Bay of Bengal route to Thailand. Dozens more drowned when their boat capsized off western Myanmar in November last year.
