Evacuation boat sinks off Burma

(Vatican Radio) Many are feared dead after a boat carrying as many as 200 Rohingya Muslims capsized off western Myanmar – also known as Burma – as rescuers tried to evacuate them ahead of a coming storm.

The boat struck rocks off Pauktaw township in Rakhine State late on Monday, causing it to sink.

“Cyclone Mahasen” is set to hit the low-lying regions later this week, where tens of thousands of refugees, displaced by last year’s sectarian violence, are living.

Burma Campaign UK director, Mark Farmaner, told Vatican Radio that the humanitarian situation for these refugees is serious.

Particularly in the Rakhine State, he said, there is “a long-running humanitarian crisis where 140,000 people, forced to flee attacks – most of them ethnic Rohingya Muslims – have been living in squalid and appalling camps for internally displaced people.”

Farmaner said in spite warnings that many of these camps are in flood-prone areas, the government has done nothing to move these displaced people to safer areas. “Now we’re faced with a situation with a cyclone heading toward this area, and people being in flimsy tents and straw shacks,” he said.

Even now, he continued, the evacuation attempts are inadequate, with some people not being moved at all, while others are being moved closer to the storm.

He warned: “We’re facing a real disaster here, with possibly many lives lost.”

Listen to Ann Schneible’s full interview with Mark Farmaner: