More than 500 people are feared dead after two boats capsized off the coast of Myanmar last week, in one of the deadliest incidents to hit the region's migrant sea routes in recent memory. The boats, packed mostly with Rohingya people, were bound for Malaysia when they vanished, and there has been no word since of most of those who were on board.
The grief is being felt hundreds of miles away, in the sprawling refugee camps around Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, the largest refugee settlement in the world. Sky News spoke to relatives of those who were on the boats, including a mother, Lalu, and her husband, Nur, whose 15-year-old son, Jani Alam, is missing and may be among the more than 500 people now feared dead.
For many in the camps, the sea has become one of the few remaining escape routes from deepening poverty. The Rohingya were displaced from their homeland around a decade ago and have little access to education or employment, while support from aid agencies is rapidly declining. That desperation, relatives say, is pushing more and more people to risk everything on dangerous crossings.
The family's account also points to the role of smugglers who profit from that desperation. Lalu says her son was effectively kidnapped, and that the family paid a ransom of around 1,600 pounds to smugglers in an attempt to have him sent home. Days later, they say, they received a message from a smuggler, deepening their fear about what had happened to him at sea.
The latest disaster follows a pattern of deadly voyages from the same shores. Earlier this year, in April, a boat carrying 280 people capsized, and one survivor, Rafiq, was among just nine people who lived through it. A smuggler who agreed to speak, saying he was driven by guilt, admitted he had sent 20 people on the same boat as Rafiq, and that all of them died.
What makes the current tragedy even starker is the apparent absence of any rescue effort. Despite more than 500 people being reported missing at sea, there appear to be no search teams trying to find them. Many of those lost were, in the words of those left behind, simply invisible people, some tricked by traffickers, some tortured, and many others driven only by the hope of a better life.