In early December, a video showing Rohingyas on an overcrowded makeshift boat made the rounds on social networks. It was drifting in the Andaman Sea, between Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia and Thailand, but no country came to its rescue – despite appeals from NGOs and the UN. Many boats meet the same fate, and every year Rohingyas die at sea in the hope of reaching Indonesia or Malaysia.
The Rohingyas are persecuted in their country of origin, Myanmar. Since the early 1990s, nearly one million Rohingya have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, a country with a Muslim majority.
