40 people missing as migrant vessel sinks off Haiti

 At least 10 people drowned and dozens more are missing after a boat packed with Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh sank on Monday, as another 12,000 people joined a half-million-strong exodus sparked by an army crackdown in Myanmar.

The boat was carrying an estimated 50 people when it went down in the estuary of the Naf river that divides the two countries, Border Guard Bangladesh area commander Lieutenant Colonel S.M. Ariful Islam told AFP.

Nearly 200 Rohingya are known to have have drowned over the last six weeks making the perilous crossing to Bangladesh, many in small wooden fishing boats that are dangerously overloaded.
Islam said 21 survivors had swum to safety after the small fishing trawler overturned, and coast and border guards were conducting a search and rescue operation in the Naf river.

Sheikh Ashrafuzzaman, a senior police officer, said authorities had recovered the bodies of six children and four women.

"The accident happened during early morning prayers," said Shams Uddin, a local resident who saw the tragedy. "I think the boat overturned as the boatmen tried to reach the shore against the returning currents."

The UN said over the weekend that 537,000 Rohingya had arrived in Bangladesh over the last seven weeks. They are fleeing violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state, where the United Nations has accused troops of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign against them.

Another 12,000 have entered in the last 24 hours, local border guard spokesman Major Iqbal Ahmed said.

"We are keeping them near the border and they will be eventually be taken to the new camps," he told AFP.

Bangladesh has allocated 3,000 acres (1,214 hectares) of forest land to create the world's largest refugee camp for the new arrivals as well as those already in the country.

Many of the new arrivals have already occupied the land and built their own makeshift shelters.

The stateless Muslim minority has faced decades of persecution in mainly Buddhist Myanmar.

The latest influx began in late August after attacks by Rohingya militants on police posts in Myanmar.

The latest accident came a week after another boat packed with Rohingya refugees capsized in the area, killing at least 34 people including many children.

One border guard told AFP the boat was just 200 yards from the Bangladesh coast when it sank in rough waters.Seven people were rescued Sunday by search teams scouring the seas off the island of La Tortue, Haiti's civil emergency agency said.

The vessel sank after leaving La Tortue earlier in the day for Providenciales island in the northern Turks and Caicos archipelago, 200 kilometers (120 miles) to the north.

According to the survivors, three of whom were hospitalized on their return to Haiti, the vessel was carrying 50 people when it sank.

In a country where more than 60 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, there are frequent attempts to reach the Bahamas or Turks and Caicos illegally.

Over the past five years, thousands of young Haitians have migrated to Chile or Brazil, countries where visas are more easily obtained.

Although Haitians historically have gone to the United States, and to Florida in particular, the flow of migrants has shifted to Canada and other neighboring countries.

Since a devastating earthquake in 2010, about 60,000 Haitians have found temporary protected status in the United States.

But US President Donald Trump's administration has said that status will expire at the close of 2017.

Source:AFP