On November 6, a boat believed to have been carrying around 70 migrants sank near the resort island of Langkawi in northwestern Malaysia. Most of the passengers were from the persecuted Rohingya minority group in Myanmar.
A major search operation found a total of 14 people alive. Eleven of them – nine from Myanmar and two from Bangladesh – have been formally charged with the crime of entering Malaysia without a valid passport. They are between the ages of 17 and 43.
Langkawi police chief Khairul Azhar Nuruddin told AFP that the charges were read out in court but the suspects did not understand them, so the proceedings will resume with the help of an interpreter in a few weeks.
Remains have been found of 36 people who died in the accident on November 6. An additional 20 people are feared to have disappeared into the waves, but a major search effort ended on Monday. The boat that sank is suspected to have sailed along with another boat full of migrants, who are only described as missing.
So far this year, more than 600 Rohingya who fled Myanmar or Bangladesh are estimated to have died or disappeared at sea, according to UN agencies monitoring the refugee situation.
