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Showing posts from November 1, 2013

UNHCR fears sea tragedies as sailing season starts in Bay of Bengal

Two displaced boys in Rakhine state play in a river. Daily life is still a struggle for communities like theirs and some people risk their lives at sea in their search for safety and stability.© UNHCR/S.Kelly UNHCR (press release) November 1, 2013 YANGON, Myanmar, November 1 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency has received worrying reports that more people are setting out to sea on smugglers' boats from the Bay of Bengal in search of a better life free from persecution. "This could signal the start of the annual sailing season – a deadly time when thousands of desperate people from Myanmar's Rakhine state risk their lives on rickety boats to find safety and stability elsewhere," a UNHCR spokesman said Friday. According to UNHCR's sources, more than 1,500 people boarded boats in northern Rakhine state and headed into the Bay of Bengal over the course of four days last week. "There have been reports of passengers drowning off the coast of R