“Ten sea voyagers were arrested by BGB personnel led by Nayeb Sufador Mohamed Wazib Uddin of the Sapran BGB outpost while hiding in a large grove of areca palms to avoid detection by the BGB, Coast Guard, and police yesterday.”

“The arrested sea voyagers are Mohamed Seraz (25), Mohamed Taher (16), Shona Meah (25), Eman Hossain (26), Noor Hossain (25), Abul Hossain (40), Salim Ullah (16), Aman Ullah (21), Abdul Hamid (38), the son of Noor Mohamed, and Nurul Hakim (60).”


“The sea voyagers had already paid Taka 30,000 each to Salim Maji, the driver, who hails from Lombori Village of Teknaf, and Gaffor Maji, who hails from Fansari Para of Saparan Union, for the voyage to Thailand or Malaysia,” according to an arrestee.



The BGB filed a case at Teknaf Police Station against the sea voyagers, said a BGB official. Lt. Col Zahid Hussan, 42 Battalion Commander, confirmed the report.  



An engine boat with 110 boatpeople sank in the Bay of Bengal on the night of December 13. Some passengers are reported dead, while others are missing till now. 

The voyage to Malaysia from Bangladesh and Burma follows a risky route where some boats sink in the sea, and where voyagers can be arrested by Thai and Burmese authorities. Still, voyagers from Burma and Bangladesh continue to follow the hazardous route.



“Recently, a police officer from Rangoon came to Maungdaw Township, and then went to Maungdaw South where an engine boat sank while going to Malaysia. Some of the passengers drowned. The officer held a meeting at the village inviting all the villagers, and told them not to send people to Thailand or Malaysia as they would like be arrested by Thai or Burmese authorities and sent to jail.”

The official said that in the future, the political situation of Burma, including Arakan State, will be changed. So, it is not necessary to send people abroad for work, related a village elder who attended the meeting.



Nearly 200 people – half of them Rohingya – have been arrested, and ten boats have been seized since the latest wave of migration began in early November, according to Teknaf Police Chief Mahbubul Haq.



"We have put undercover agents along the border. They are tipping us off to any moves by traffickers to get Rohingya and Bangladeshis into the boats to attempt the journey. But I am afraid many boats may have evaded our crackdown and set sail anyway."



"Traffickers charge only around 20,000 taka ($300) for a boat ride to Malaysia, which is at least 15 times cheaper than the migration fees being charged by recruiting agencies.”

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Thousands of Muslim Rohingya – who are not recognized as citizens in Burma – stream across the border into Muslim-majority Bangladesh every year, according to a report by the United Nations published in the AFP as ‘Bangladesh cracks down on boat migrants to Malaysia’.

Bangladesh recognizes 28,000 of them as registered refugees, who live in two official UN camps near the border. This figure is a fraction of the 200,000 to 300,000 "unofficial" refugees, according to government estimates.



“For many refugees, the risky sea journey is better than the squalor and near starvation in the refugee camps in Bangladesh. A lot of Rohingya know that the trip is like suicide. But do they have any choice?" asked Mujibur Rahaman, a registered refugee at the UN's Kutupalong Refugee Camp. “The Rohingya are driven by a sense of utter frustration to attempt the boat trip to Malaysia.”